


Cirque du Killer Clowns

by maximumsuckage



Series: Dreamscape [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Archangels, Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Love, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, M/M, Pagan Gods, Plotty, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Sabriel - Freeform, Slow Burn, killer clowns, seriously super slow burn, so much plot, the slowest burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-02-09 00:21:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 104,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12876201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximumsuckage/pseuds/maximumsuckage
Summary: A few counties away, a girl enters a haunted house and never comes out.  Turns out, the demon circus is in town.  Gabriel and Castiel might be dead, but the show must go on.Alt summary: Sam vs the Killer Clown





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Lowkey, idk if I should trigger warning this chapter specifically. Lowkey blood, some weird mental state, but no self harm and nothing as drastic as Dean trying to commit suicide in the show.

_Two mornings later_

“So get this.”

Dean pressed his fingers to his temples and rolled away, dragging the blanket over his head so his brother, who was already fully dressed and awake, couldn’t see him. “Sam. You said you were going out for coffee, and there is no coffee. My head hurts, and I do not want to hear any serial killer fun facts until I get some caffeine in me.”

“I was going out for coffee, and then I remembered this book I saw in the library, and I decided I should check that out. I don’t have any new serial killer fun facts today.”

“So you’re saying that there is no coffee.” Dean’s voice was a muffled grumble. It had not been a good night for the unfortunate man. The car ride from New York to Kansas had been a solid twenty-three hours, broken only by a night’s stay in a motel when Sam had insisted that his legs were going to cramp and fall off if he didn’t get a chance to walk around, and Dean had been outvoted when Jack had practically thrown himself from the car. They’d gotten back to the bunker late the next night, and Dean had tried to go to bed, only to find himself tossing and turning.

One beer turned into two, which turned into a shot of whiskey or four, and the next thing he knew he was wasted, re-watching Game of Thrones until he finally passed out of sheer exhaustion. Then there had been the nightmares, of course, because his brain couldn’t simply be nice to him, could it? They were disjointed images that faded from his consciousness each time he half-woke, but left him panting and terrified. When he finally settled, it seemed that only two minutes later Sam was shaking him awake, telling him that they were out of coffee and he was going to go buy more.

And now there was no coffee, and his head was pounding. His sheets were tangled around his legs and his room was cold and his body felt hot and prickly and all he wanted was sleep- real sleep, uninterrupted, dark, silent sleep.

There was a moment of silence, and then the door closed as Sam left. A few minutes later, he returned, and Dean could hear the rattle of pills as he set two things on the nightstand.

He waited until Sam left again to dump perhaps a little more ibuprofen than necessary into his hand and wash it down with the water bottle. Then, suddenly realizing how thirsty he was, he sucked down most of the fluid, his body trying to recover from his unfortunate methods of coping.

He sat up, crushing the plastic under his fingers as he waited for the ibuprofen to kick in. As the headache slowly abated, the reality sank in to replace the pain. It was time to trudge through another meaningless day.

And yet-

As the ibuprofen cleared his head, he frowned. Gabriel was dead, and yet Sam had spoken to him multiple times now. Entire conversations, and apparently, a snippet of Gabriel’s memory, which Sam refused to say in detail (although Dean could guess from context). And if Sam could talk to the archangel…

“Sammy!” He was out of bed in an instant, only to trip on his knotted sheets. Cursing, he kicked them away and ran out the door, nearly colliding with his brother in the hall.

“Dean, what? You okay?” Sam grabbed Dean’s arm, hand brushing the ridge of the burned handprint.

“Yeah. I’m good.” He looked almost crazed as he gazed up at Sam, pupils dilated, breathing quickly. “Next time you see Gabe-”

“I can’t control-”

“Next time you see Gabe, look for Cass.”

Sam blinked, his hand falling. “What?”

Dean studied his face, sensing a needle coming towards his balloon of hope. “Next time you see Gabe, you need to look for Cass. If you can get a message to him-”

“Dean, I can’t control it.” Sam said it slowly, sympathetically, but like he was talking to somebody who couldn’t comprehend. “Gabe and I don’t know how it’s happening. I’ve never seen anyone else there, unless it was part of Gabe’s dream. He hasn’t even been able to talk to anyone else there. There’s nothing we can do. I can’t bring him back here and I can’t go exploring there.”

The hope crashing was like being knocked over by a tidal wave. It took Dean’s breath away, and he turned away from Sam, though it wasn’t quick enough to hide the way his expression fell from his brother. “Never mind,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “Figured.”

“I’m sorry, man.” Sam reached out to touch Dean’s arm, but he was already walking away. “Dean-”

“I’m getting coffee.” His voice was thick, and he didn’t look back at Sam. He would get dressed, stop by Dunkin, then dink around town running errands maybe, until he could find a case that would take his mind off reality.

He shut his door behind him before Sam could follow. The last thing he needed was his brother trying to have a heart to heart. Of course, Sam was not Sam if he didn’t try anyways, and Dean ignored the fact that he could still see his brother’s shadow in the crack under the door. He just turned away and focused on hunting for a pair of jeans that didn’t have blood on them.

“Dean… I know you don’t think it would help, but maybe…” Sam hesitated, and there was a brush of fabric as he leaned against the other side of the door. “Maybe you should find someone to talk to about this.”

A sting of pain ripped through the emptiness in Dean’s chest. He didn’t respond.

“It sucks. I… I miss them too. Cass and Mom. But Dean… you’re not… you’re not you right now.”

Dean picked up a pair of pants from the ground. There was blood splattered all over them. He would have to wash them. Again.

“And… I dunno, maybe talking to someone who’s… who’s seen this kinda thing before would help. Bring you some peace.”

This pair had a giant rip in the thigh from one of the various times Dean had been stabbed, but it wasn’t too big, and Dean supposed that was the fashion now, anyways. Besides, the only stain on them was coffee. Which was practically destiny, because he was going to get coffee.

“You’re hurting, Dean. I know you think you can just shake this stuff off, but that was a big hit.”

He swapped sweatpants for denim and then changed his shirt as well, throwing on a clean t-shirt and the flannel he’d worn in the car the day before.

“You don’t deserve to suffer, Dean.”

He froze mid button, fingers fumbling. Sam was still there, listening for a response, and he couldn’t- everything had fallen apart, and he couldn’t. He took a shuddery breath, trying to center himself, and finished buttoning the shirt. He didn’t say anything to Sam when he threw the door open and started walking down the hall, and he didn’t say anything when he got to the main room and started climbing the stairs to the front door, even when Sam followed him.

“Dean?”

“Go hang with Jack.” Dean hovered in the doorway a moment. “I’m getting coffee.”

Sam nodded, although the look in his eyes said that, while the matter was dropped for now, it would resurface later. Probably sooner than Dean would like. “Just think about it, okay?”

“I’d rather do a little less thinking,” Dean said, and shut the door behind him.

The click of the door latch did nothing to make Dean feel better as he hopped up the stairs to the gravel where the Impala was parked. The hope he’d felt that morning had completely drained, leaving him somehow both numb and hurting at the same time, like every thought sent a stabbing pain through his chest.

Castiel was still gone.

Dean curled his fingers into a fist, fingernails digging into his palm, finger joints cracking from the strain, then got into the car and drove off in search of coffee.

 

_Back inside the bunker_

Sam watched the door close behind Dean, and then dragged his hands over his face. He could practically see the emotion in Dean’s every movement, the way he startled more easily, the dark circles under his eyes. This wasn’t Dean who kept trucking, knowing he was making a difference and helping people. This was Dean who had broken, who was on autopilot, slowly falling apart on the inside.

And there was nothing Sam could do, because Dean refused to let anybody near the pain he was feeling, no doubt in the hope that by ignoring it, it would go away.

Sam of all people knew how wrong that belief was. He had lost most everybody, except Dean. Every girl he’d ever loved…

The point was, he knew what Dean was feeling, and it killed him to watch his brother try to dig his way out of the hole of grief alone. Dean had been there for him, so long ago, and now, he wanted to be there for Dean. But he couldn’t do that if his brother wouldn’t let him.

Frustrated, he returned to the library, only to find Jack pouring over the old tome on mythology that he’d been flipping through earlier. “Yggdrasil,” the boy said, lips fumbling the ancient word. “It says to get to Hela, you need to go down Yggdrasil, and go North, and then you cross a river. And then there’s something about a chicken coming back to life?”

Sam paused in the doorway, and Jack turned to look at him, head tilted. “How do you get to this place? Why wouldn’t my uncle just give you directions?”

Sam sighed, running his hands down his face. “Because it’s Gabriel, and he doesn’t believe in clarity.”

Jack’s brow furrowed in confusion, and he turned back to the book, trying to understand the layers of metaphor and story telling that shrouded the truth behind mythology. “Is he one of those old beings that speaks in riddles? I read about those too. The Sphinx-”

“Trust me, he’s not the Sphinx,” Sam said, sitting down beside Jack and looking at the book. He’d already read the passage multiple times.

It recounted the journey of a king, accompanied by an old woman. In an attempt to find a place where herbs grew even in the winter, she led him through a cloud of dense fog. On the other side, they encountered a crowd of deceased nobles, slowly making their way towards Hela’s city. Past the crowd, they find a sunny field where the herbs grow, but then keep going, eventually coming to a deep and dark river flowing with weapons. There is a convenient bridge, and they pass it to find an enormous battle, a melee of blood and gore. The woman tells the king that these were soldiers who had died fighting, and thus were destined to continue the battle for all eternity. However, past the eternal war is where the journey ends; they encounter a wall too high to jump over. The woman rips the head off a rooster she has just so happened to have hiding under her cloak, and tosses the carcass over the wall. The unfortunate rooster comes back to life, flutters to the top of the wall, and starts crowing, having been resurrected.

It was an odd story, one that Sam couldn’t find much sense in, but a lead nonetheless.

“If you keep looking,” Sam said, turning the page for Jack, “it says that this horse Sleipnir knows the way. He shows up a few times.”

“Odin’s mount,” Jack said, pleased to have recognized the name.

“And another one of your cousins,” Sam added. He had to flip through the book to find the page, although half of him wanted to take it away from pure, innocent Jack. This tome of lore made the story a bit more graphic than necessary. The author apparently found Loki’s little oops of horse sex to be hilarious.

Jack pulled the book over and skimmed the page, frowning. “This is my uncle?” he asked suddenly, looking up at Sam.

“Yeah.”

“Loki.”

Sam nodded.

Jack’s eyes went big as the connection clicked for the first time, and he looked down at the book. “Loki isn’t good… but you said Gabriel is good? And if Loki is Gabriel-”

“Yeah- well, Jack, you gotta understand that…” Sam hesitated, trailing off. Understand what? That Gabriel had been one of the main players in Norse mythology, one that was commonly understood to be a bad guy? He had killed one of Thor’s brothers, after all, as a joke. Which sounded like Gabriel, if Sam were being honest. But Jack was staring at him, eyes big and horrified, trying to straighten out his view on the world. “You gotta understand that Gabe is very old, and very powerful. The archangels are Heaven’s greatest weapon, and they haven’t always made the best choices…”

“I read almost this whole book, Sam.” Jack gestured frantically at it. “Loki’s completely selfish. All he does is do stuff so he doesn’t die, and then make it worse, and then try to fix it because other people threaten to kill him for making it worse.”

It probably didn’t help that he was sleeping with Thor as well, but Sam didn’t say that aloud. “Gabriel is… unique,” he finally said. “He’s not… he’s not like the other angels. He’s more…” Cruel? Selfish? Humorous? Free willed? That sounded good. “He has free will.”

Of course, that just opened up an entirely new can of worms. They hadn’t yet explained the concept of Free Will to Jack, or how that was significant in their lives. Certainly, he had seen it in the Bible, but now his brow creased as Sam spoke it out loud. “Doesn’t everybody have free will? You and Mom said that I could choose…”

“You’re half human.” Sam nodded. “So you can choose your life. And the angels can too. Cass… Cass proved that. But a lot of them don’t know that they can choose, or they’re not interested in choosing for themselves.”

Jack nodded, looking down as he thought about that. “So it’s easier to blindly follow the laws given to you than to decide what’s right or wrong for yourself?”

Once again, Sam was surprised by how easily Jack picked up the concept.

“Gabriel uses his free will to choose…” He looked back up at Sam. “Not the good choices. I don’t think.”

Sam ran his fingers through his hair and let out a breath. “Well… Gabriel is… kinda a dick sometimes. But he’s a good guy, when it comes down to it. He tries. Sometimes.”

“Sometimes.” Jack turned away from the book. “Why is he helping me then? Or why… Why is he helping you help me? Are you together?”

“What?” Sam would have choked if there was anything in his mouth.

Jack smiled a little at his reaction. “You are.”

“No. No, we are definitely not together.” Sam shook his head, and dragged his hands through his hair. Of course Gabriel would get him into a mess like this. Naturally. “Trust me. I have better taste than that.”

“So why is he helping me?” Jack tilted his head.

Sam opened his mouth to answer that, and then closed it. The truth was that he didn’t know why Gabriel had taken an interest in Jack’s upbringing. There was nothing purely selfish in it, because Gabriel was dead and wouldn’t be personally affected either way. Maybe he cared because he didn’t want Jack going after the other pagans, but there hadn’t been any whining about it on the part of Gabriel, which seemed to generally be the case when he had to suck it up and do something altruistic. Or maybe it was simply because Jack was Gabriel’s nephew, and he wanted to do right by his family.

Sam had no idea. He didn’t know Gabriel well enough to even hazard a guess.

“Sam?” Jack’s head tilted a bit more as he studied Sam’s face, watching the confusion flicker across his expression.

“I don’t know.” Sam finally admitted it. “I don’t know why he cares. But I think for once he actually does care. And… I think we can trust him.”

“You think?” Jack didn’t look particularly confident in that. “What if he doesn’t? My father- Lucifer was evil. What stops Gabriel from being that way as well?”

Sam ran a hand down his face and shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. But he cares about family. He cared about Lucifer and Michael, so I think he cares about you as well. He sacrificed his life to save the world. When it came down to it, he was one of the good guys.”

“And you trust him?” Jack turned fully in the chair so that he was looking up at Sam. “You trust that if we find his daughter, she’ll teach me instead of killing me? Or hurting one of you?”

Sam found himself hesitating again at that. It was a pointed question, and it brought to light the fact that following these dreams of Gabriel was taking a gamble. They didn’t know what Gabriel’s motives were, and for all they knew, this could have been a convoluted plot to bring the archangel himself back to life.

And yet, Sam had seen the surprise on Gabriel’s face when he’d first mentioned the Nephilim, and though he could have been faking, Sam thought he would have brought up Jack’s existence sooner if he had an ulterior motive.

“Yeah. I trust him.” It almost hurt to say aloud, because the last time Sam had trusted Gabriel, he had ended up in herpes commercial. And the ridiculousness of that statement brought a smile to Sam’s face. “Yeah. It’s probably not the best plan, but I trust him.”

Jack nodded. Sam’s vouching for Gabriel was enough for him.

An hour or so later

Dean was chopping onions in the kitchen. There was still no case, which was incredibly inconvenient for him, because he wanted to do something, anything, to get his mind off the emptiness of the Bunker.

Not that it was empty, per se. Sam and Jack were there. But the lack of a specific angel, the empty spot where his mother had been, weighed down on him.

So now he was going to make tacos for lunch, and hope that Sam and Jack were hungry, because cooking, at least, was something calming and physical that he could do.

Until the knife went into his finger.

“Shit,” Dean said, looking down at his hand. He pulled it away from the onion before he could bleed on it, but blood was already welling up as he moved across the kitchen to grab a paper towel to staunch it with.

It stung, and for a moment, there was nothing in his head except the irritating pain in his hand. It certainly wasn’t gunshot caliber, but it was obnoxious, especially as it burned with the onion juice.

The first aid kit wasn’t up on the fridge, where it normally was. Dean sighed and held the paper towel tighter around it so he wouldn’t have to clean blood off the floor later, and made his way to the library. “Sammy!”

There was no answer. He sighed- with his luck, Sam was asleep and communing with the archangel again, the archangel who, apparently, got a free pass on the whole being cut off from the living thing. It wasn’t fair.

He started down the hall towards the library, where Sam normally could be found during their time off hunting, but he didn’t make it all the way, instead finding a note in on the table in the main command room. He’d missed it when he first came back from the store.

Off running with Jack. Be back in an hour or so.

That would explain why Sam hadn’t answered his shout. Dean tossed the note aside, pursing his lips as he turned a circle, looking for the damn first aid kit. All he needed were bandages.

Well- he peeled the paper towel off the wound to inspect it. Dried blood already stuck to it, and he winced as sticky flesh moved against itself. The knife had gone into his finger, effectively shaving off a good slice of skin and tissue, and the only reason he hadn’t chopped the chunk clean off was because the knife had been stopped by his fingernail.

That was great. Another spot in his hand where he would have no feeling.

What he needed to do was wrap the paper towel around the wound again, but instead, he found himself staring at it. Each time he swabbed the blood away, more pumped up. It stung, an irritating pulse in his fingertip that resonated through his hand. He needed to bandage it, maybe throw a few stitches into it to keep it closed and healing.

Castiel could have healed it on the spot.

He sank backwards, leaning against the table, letting blood drip through his fingertips. The fat drops hit the floor, each with their own little plink. Did it even matter? He could stitch up his hand, but that wouldn’t fix things. That wouldn’t bring back Castiel or Mary. That would just add another scar to his list of many.

His hand felt cold now, the skin pale where it was visible under the red. All he needed was to find the first aid kit, and yet here he was, entranced as capillaries emptied their tiny rivers into the world outside his skin. How did Castiel do it? There were so many parts, so many tiny cells, and yet with a simple touch, the angel could make the entire system start working again.

His fingers smelled like onions. He wondered if the onion could get inside him now. Maybe it would make the vamps smell him before he got there- no, wait, that was garlic. It didn’t matter though. Nothing mattered. His blood was dripping onto the floor, and he couldn’t even summon the energy to care.

The door opened.

Dean jumped, the trance broken, and turned up to the doorway. Sam and Jack were walking back in, Sam’s hair pulled back in a damp bun. He was panting. Jack looked less affected by the run, although his breathing was a bit louder than normal. Dean almost laughed. Sam had finally found someone fitter than he was, and it wasn’t completely human.

“Hey De- dude, what the hell?” Sam was down the stairs in a minute, reaching for Dean’s hand. “What did you do?”

He grunted, pulling his chilly hand away. “Cut myself chopping veggies. You guys want tacos?”

Jack frowned, eyes big as he looked at the dark drops on the floor. “Dean?”

“If one of you could just tell me where you hid the first aid kit, then I’ll have them cooked up in a half hour or so.”

“Dude, that’s a lot of blood,” Sam said, like they didn’t see more on a regular basis. “It’s in my room. I told you, I was cleaning out the expired stuff. You want me to stitch that up for you?”

“Or I could heal it.”

They both turned suddenly to look at Jack, who looked nervous.

“Jack, your powers-” Sam started, but Jack shook his head.

“I think I could do something like that. I mean, I… I resurrected someone. When we were on that case. And I think I can heal Dean too.”

“Hold up, you what-ed someone?” Dean straightened suddenly, and the sudden motion almost threw him into a head rush. Maybe he had lost a little bit of blood, though he had been in fights with less. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“That boy.” Sam frowned, piecing together the spotty memory from when he’d been concussed, before Fenrir had healed him. “He was dead when we found him, remember?”

Dean blinked, trying to remember back to the end. He’d been a bit distracted by the giant scary wolf god, and in his line of work, dead bodies all blurred together. “Huh. Yeah, he was gone. I guess you’re right.”

“I brought him back to life.” Jack looked between them. “I don’t remember how I did it. I was…”

“High,” Dean supplied helpfully.

Jack shot him a glare, apparently not appreciating that they kept morphine strong enough to knock out an archangel for a little bit in their bag, although, in all fairness, the boy had never had to wait for a gunshot or stab wound to heal, and, if one was careful to not let himself become addicted to them, the painkillers helped a ton.

“And I resurrected him. I just… knew what to do.” Jack frowned, head tilted. “But I remember what it felt like, and I think I can heal your hand.”

Dean stared at him for a moment, and he was painfully aware of Sam’s gaze, watching him, trying to read what he would do.

And, to his shame, his first impulse was to pull it away. Castiel could heal him. Castiel was allowed that intimate access to his being. He already belonged to the seraph, from the handprint on his arms to the markings on his ribs, and Jack was very much not Castiel.

And yet, Castiel wasn’t here, and the Nephilim was gazing at him, eyes big and questioning, waiting for his permission to reach out.

It was a permission Castiel had never asked for, and yet was granted all the same.

And Dean needed to say yes, needed to allow Jack to hone his powers, needed to allow him this smaller wound so that in the future he could heal the life threatening ones, and yet-

“I’m fine,” he grunted at the boy, and turned away. “You said it was in your room, Sammy?”

“Yeah.” Sam reached out to touch his shoulder. “But Dean, maybe you should let him try-”

“I’ve got it.” He shook off Sam’s hand and headed towards Sam’s room, ready to thread a needle and sew his own flesh shut.

A moment later, he had the kit in his own room, the door closed. He held his hand over the sink as he poured whiskey over the cut, and he closed his eyes at the burn, not flinching away. Rather, he welcomed the pain. Amber liquid mingled with red against porcelain white, and the burn of the alcohol burned at the emptiness inside his head, a flame where there had only been ice.

He opened his eyes and stared at the fluid as it swirled down the drain. “I have a problem,” he whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

_A very long time ago_

Castiel knew immediately when Gabriel was back in Heaven, and he abandoned his sparring match with Balthazar to flit to the Pearly Gates, waiting for the archangel’s return, as he had the time before, and the time before that, and the time before that. Gabriel was easily his favorite of the superiors. The Messenger was full of stories of other worlds and lands and people, and bought trinkets and games from Earth for the fledglings, sometimes to the annoyance of Michael and Lucifer.

He also wasn’t so strict as the other archangels, who made sure that the Heavenly order was kept. Disorder would bring chaos, and chaos would bring darkness. He hadn’t trained Castiel personally- his work as God’s Messenger took him away from Heaven far too much for that- but he had taken a shine to the fledgling, and Castiel, in the secret part of his heart, was hoping that Gabriel would take him on as an apprentice.

But this time was different.

Gabriel’s eyes were dark when he walked through the gates, his wings held close to his body. He jumped when Castiel fell into step beside him, and then relaxed when he realized who it was- but only slightly.

“Are you okay?” Castiel tilted his head, keeping up with Gabriel’s swift pace. “You look scared- were you attacked?”

Gabriel didn’t respond, and continued walking, heading towards the part of the Heavenly citadel that he called his own home. Castiel had been there multiple times. It wasn’t very homey. There was a bed, empty walls, and a desk overflowing with backorder paperwork, but it didn’t much match with Gabriel’s more flamboyant personality.

This mood didn’t much match either.

“Gabriel?” Castiel followed him into his home, slipping in when the door closed behind him. “What happened? Do you want me to get Michael?”

That got a reaction. “No,” he hissed, looking over. “You get Michael, and you die.”

Castiel’s eyes widened, and he backed up a step. “Gabriel?”

Gabriel stared at him, and then looked away, running a hand down his face. “Castiel. I’m sorry.”

Castiel opened and closed his mouth once, lost for words.

Gabriel looked upwards, taking a breath. “Castiel, you need to leave me, right now.”

“Leave you? Gabriel, I don’t understand-”

“Now, Castiel.”

“No.” The younger angel crossed his arms. “Something happened while you were gone. Tell me what. Whatever it was, we can fix it. That’s what you always tell us, right? Fix whatever we break before Michael finds out? Well, we can do that here too.”

Gabriel stared at him, then let out a bitter laugh. “Can’t fix this one, Cassie. Just go, okay? Don’t tell anyone you saw me. I want to do this as cleanly as possible.”

“Gabriel, please.” He tilted his head, unwilling to leave when the normally happy-go-lucky archangel looked like he was either going to cry or lash out at someone. “Tell me what’s wrong? I can help you fix it.”

Gabriel was silent as he moved around the room, shoving things into a bag. It didn’t take much time for him to gather everything of personal importance. He didn’t have that many things here.

“Gabriel.” Castiel reached out to touch his wing when he came within reach.

Gabriel froze at the touch, and then turned. “Knocked someone up, is that what you want to know?”

Castiel blinked, not knowing the phrase. “What?”

“Yeah. There’s a war brewing in Heaven, which I can’t stop, no matter how much I try, and then I go and get a girl pregnant. Of course I do. Only me. Only stupid, fucking Lo-” he cut himself off, then corrected, “Gabriel.”

“You got…” Castiel’s eyes widened as he comprehended. “Gabriel, no…”

“Gabriel yes.” Gabriel shot him a derpy grin paired with half-hearted jazz hands and then dragged his fingers down his face. “Just don’t tell anyone, okay, Cassie? I’m gonna disappear. Let them think I’m dead. Kid’s gonna need me so she doesn’t get slaughtered by the Nephilim police.”

“You- you’re leaving?”

He threw his bag over his shoulder and nodded, stepping towards the door, but Castiel moved in front of it, wings spread, blocking him. “No. You can’t leave.”

Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. “I don’t got a choice, kiddo. And this has been a long time in coming.”

“But-”

“Castiel, if I tell you anything else, you’ll be in trouble with Michael. Just get out of my way. Mourn me, whatever you have to do. But do not tell anybody you saw me here today.”

“But-”

“Cassie.” Gabriel reached out to touch his chin, tilting his head so that they were looking at each other. “You’re a good kid. And you’ve got an important destiny. Okay? But my path goes a different way. Maybe we’ll see each other again. And I know there’s an assignment waiting for you down on Earth, when you’re strong enough. I put it in the file myself. That’s what you always wanted, right?”

Castiel pulled back, blinking away shocked tears. “I thought… I thought you were going to take me to Earth with you.”

He shook his head. “My kid needs her father. She’s blood now, Castiel.”

“I’m your blood,” he whispered. “I’m your brother.”

“I’m sorry.” Gabriel drew his hand back. “I’m so sorry, Cassie. I meant to stay longer. I really did.”

“You meant to stay longer?” Castiel’s eyes narrowed, and he looked up sharply. “You were planning on leaving anyways?”

“War is coming, Cassie… I can’t.” He looked away. “Michael and Lucifer are trying to get me to choose a side, and Raphael has already chosen Michael, and I can’t betray Lucifer…” He looked upwards, taking a breath. That was none of Castiel’s concern. “I love them. But I can’t fight them. What I can do is be there for my baby.”

“What about us?”

“I’m sorry.” He pushed Castiel’s wing aside to step through the door. “Eventually people will start asking where I am. Please, for the sake of my kid, don’t tell them about this conversation.”

Castiel shook his head, tried to think of an argument that Gabriel would listen to, but the archangel was already gone.

 

_Back in the present, in the Empty_

A bit ago, Jack had called Castiel, in a fit of terror when he was listening to Sam and Dean argue. That call had reached through the ether of the universe, had travelled far and wide, had been warped and twisted by the fabric of existence itself, until it reached Castiel’s ears.

He gasped, awake in an instant, looking around at the darkness that surrounded him. “Hello?” Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet. “Hello? HELLO?”

 

_In the present, in the living world_

“Look, there’s nothing we can do until we get more information from Gabe,” Sam said as he flipped through another book. “They all agree that Sleipnir knows the way to Helheim, but I don’t want to go calling on any gods we don’t know. That doesn’t exactly sound safe to me. I’ll see what I can get out of Gabe next time I see him. If I see him.”

Jack didn’t look particularly satisfied with that, but he didn’t argue, understanding. The idea of a teacher, of somebody to show him how to use the incredible power that swirled just under the surface of his skin, was tantalizing. If he could control it, he would never hurt anybody. If he could control it, he could help the Winchesters even more. He could help Dean, even.

Dean, who was currently laying in bed, music turned all the way up. What they needed was a case. Cases always made Dean perkier.

“So… I found something earlier,” Jack said, as if on cue, pushing a book on world mythologies out of the way. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Hela… actually, I think it’s a case.”

“You found a case?” Sam looked up from the book, a bemused grin tugging at his lips. “When’d you do that?”

“Earlier today. After Dean cut himself. I thought maybe he’d rather fight than chop vegetables.”

It almost physically hurt Sam, the innocence of that statement. Jack had no idea that Dean actually enjoyed cooking. Sure, Dean cooked some now, but there were none of the experimental recipes, the triumphant ‘try this!’ of him sliding a plate of steaming food across the table. There were burgers, but there were no toasted buns or ketchup squirted in the shapes of various weapons. Now, cooking had become a desperate distraction, as serious as a hunt involving dead children, with none of the fun from before. There were plain burgers and peanut butter sandwiches and too many orders on Grubhub for Sam to keep track of.

If an enemy ever wanted to find them, all they had to do was ask the delivery drivers from the Chinese place, the pizza place, and the barbeque place about the odd men living in the old war bunker outside of town. The Chinese driver in particular hated making the trek out. He had started spreading rumors about Sam and Dean being secret lovers living in ruins, only claiming to be brothers. Sam had chosen to ignore that.

“What’s your case then?” Sam smiled at the boy, nodding at him to continue. Jack, for his part, looked a little wary of Sam’s expression, but was buoyed by the smile.

“It’s only a few hours south of here. There’s a haunted house.” His lips curved in a hopeful smile. “An actual haunted house. At an amusement park. Except, sometimes people go in, and they don’t come out. I’m thinking it’s an actual ghost.”

Sam’s brow furrowed as he considered it. “Sounds like our kinda thing… can I see the article?”

Pleased at having his case taken seriously, Jack hopped up and disappeared from the room. A moment later, he was back, hugging the borrowed laptop to his chest. He opened it, then made a frustrated noise as it started updating itself. “It always does this.”

Sam half stood to look at the screen, and let out a laugh. “As soon as you want to see something quickly, right?”

Jack made a frustrated growl at the screen as the loading bar went backwards.

Sam sat back in the chair. “I am so glad college was all paper for me,” he said, shaking his head. “Imagine kids trying to hand stuff in on time on a computer. It would update as soon as the due date came up.”

Jack looked up curiously. “College?”

The boy didn’t know about that. Right. “Only three years,” Sam amended. “Didn’t finish my degree because…”

“My father.”

“No, actually.” Sam shook his head. “A different demon. Azazel.” Azazel, who had murdered Jess, had killed their mother the first time, had made Sam into an abomination against all things good and holy. That had been so long ago, and yet it still brought a bitter taste to his mouth. Jess’s face was still clear in his memory.

He would have married her, he thought. After they both graduated. He would have been a lawyer, she would have been… whatever she decided. She had changed her mind every two weeks. He had woken up several times in their apartment to her quiet sobs as graduation drew closer and she tried to amend what she wanted with what her parents wanted of her. His kisses had always banished the tears. Jess was smart and beautiful and athletic, and she would have been able to do whatever she put her mind to, and her parents would have accepted that, strict as they could be. They loved her, after all, wanted the best for her, made sure she went to school so she could have the best start to her life that she could.

There was still an ache in his chest that his loving her meant she never had the chance to see the world outside of school.

Jack saw the look on Sam’s face, and he didn’t pry. Instead, he waited silently for the computer to finish installing updates, and then pulled up the article. “Here.”

Sam shook himself out of the memories and skimmed the article. True to Jack’s word, it described a series of disappearances from an amusement park in the little backwater town of Brentwood, Kansas. Four people had vanished so far, and the last place they had been seen was within the haunted house attraction. The park had been turned inside out and shut down for the investigation, but no bodies were found, and security footage had no record of the missing people after they had stepped into the attraction.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Sam said, nodding. “This looks like our kinda case.” He pulled out his phone and dialed Dean, rather than shouting across the bunker. If Dean had his headphones on, he wouldn’t hear anyways.

The call only rang twice before it went to voicemail, but there was the sound of a door opening further in the bunker. “What, Sammy?”

Sam rolled his eyes at the shout, and waited for Dean to come to them so they wouldn’t have to have a screaming match to pass along information about the case. When Dean finally walked into the room, Jack bounced on the balls of his feet, eager to show the fruits of his labors in combing through news articles. “I found a case.”

The same bemused expression that had crossed Sam’s face earlier appeared on Dean’s. “You did?”

“He did,” Sam confirmed, and turned the computer around.

Dean walked over and tilted the screen so he could see better, eyes flicking across the words. “Huh. Looks like a case. We’ll head out in the morning then.”

Jack’s gaze was fixed on Dean’s hand, the smile having fallen away. He’d bandaged the finger, and the combination of two stitches and gauze and medical tape meant that it had stopped bleeding, but Jack could still sense the wound. Dean followed his look, and sighed.

For a moment, there was silence, and then Dean’s jaw clenched, like he was steeling himself. He held out his hand.

Jack hesitated, and met his eyes.

Sam held his breath, watching.

Almost imperceptibly, Dean nodded.

Carefully, like he was touching a small, delicate animal, Jack peeled away the medical tape and the gauze, exposing the cut. The stitches were neat- Dean was well practiced with that- and bits of dried blood flaked around the wound. Jack closed his hands around Dean’s and closed his eyes.

He drew on his grace, trying to recreate the feeling that he’d had when he’d resurrected that boy. He’d been relaxed, at one with his grace, with the universe itself, letting energy do the work for him.

Cells knit, vessels reconnected, nerve endings sparked.

And when Jack drew his hand back, all that remained was a thin scar and dark, dried blood, and a sharp tingling as the neurons in the area came back to life. The threads from the stitches fell to the ground.

Dean made a little gasp, but it wasn’t at the surprise of the small miracle. It was at the miracle being done by the wrong angel.

But he needed to pull himself together, so he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then clapped Jack on the shoulder. “Case. Tomorrow. Bright and early.”

And then he was gone again, back to his room, and if he sobbed silent into his hands until his eyes were raw and his head ached, nobody was around to see it.

 

_The next morning_

He was in the big lecture hall, sitting close to the front. He didn’t want to miss any notes, and there was a test coming up, after all. And he needed to do well- this class was hard. He couldn’t remember exactly what class it was, maybe, but it was hard. And he needed to take notes, but his pencil had no tip. Frantically, he searched through his backpack for a pen. John was laughing at him. He’d known Sam wouldn’t make it through college, and he was certainly proving that now. How could he be a student when he didn’t even have a pencil?

“Hello, hello, naughty children,” the professor said, bursting into the room. He slapped a packet of paper down on the desk. “Surprise! Test day! I hope you all studied.”

Sam opened his mouth to say that he needed a pencil, but John smacked him across the back of the head, and he couldn’t talk. But when he looked back, John’s eyes were yellow, and he was still laughing. “You’re gonna fail, Sammy. I knew you would, all along. Dean was an idiot, putting ideas in your head.”

“I studied,” Sam said, turning back to his backpack, digging through. He tossed aside knives and revolvers and rifles and the rotting, oozing head of a vampire, but there was no writing implement.

The professor laughed too, sitting on the edge of the table, one leg up so his thigh was at Sam’s eye level. “You don’t need to take the test,” he said, and his honey-whiskey eyes were glittering with the many lights of the lecture hall. “You could take me instead.”

“You have to sleep with the professor to pass?” Azazel-John said, rolling his eyes as Sam moved a hand to the professor’s leg, around to the inside of his thigh. “Pathetic. I knew you wouldn’t get anywhere.”

“I just need a pen-” Sam started, but his voice was cut off by the professor’s mouth, and suddenly they were both laying atop the long table of the lecture hall, Sam atop the smaller man, who had his head thrown back and was laughing.

And then he kissed Gabriel’s neck, and the archangel wrapped his legs around Sam’s waist, arching his back and grinning as he tugged at Sam’s flannel. “Having fun, Sammy?”

He didn’t respond, kissing the angel’s neck harder, nipping and biting and trying to grind him into the table.

“Sammy?”

He hesitated, pulling back some.

“Sammy!”

The dream dispersed, and Sam was left feeling hot and prickly all over. He looked up, pupils wide, to see Dean in the doorway, looking equal parts amused and horrified. “I never want to hear that noise come out of my baby brother’s mouth again, understand?”

Sam’s face, already flushed, turned bright red, and he grabbed the closest object, a book from his side table, and threw it at Dean. Dean laughed and vanished into the hallway, and the book crashed against the wall. “Case, remember? Jack’s gonna take point. Let’s put the kid through his paces, see what he can do.” He poked his head back in. “There’s coffee made.”

“Get out, Dean.”

Amused by Sam’s discomfort, Dean’s footsteps disappeared down the hall, and Sam fell back against his pillow, taking slow breaths to bring his heart rate back to a normal level. A glance at the clock told him it was seven in the morning. Dean must have been excited about the case to be raring to go this early, but Sam felt clammy now.

That was not a dream he wanted to have again.

With a groan, he sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and took another deep breath, trying to banish the feel of Gabriel’s body under his. There were so many things wrong with that image that Sam couldn’t even begin to account for them all. Gabriel was Loki, a notorious pagan god, not someone a hunter got with. Loki was an archangel, holy and sacred and not someone a boy with demon blood got with. Gabriel was also a man, and Sam was relatively certain that he liked women, at least, he had never been attracted to any man that he could think of.

In the waking world, he was certainly not attracted to Gabriel. He didn’t have any desire to touch the smaller man, to run his hands down his body, to watch the light glitter in those ancient golden eyes-

Okay, Sam did like the gold eyes, but that wasn’t a sexual thing. That was an aesthetic thing.

That was all it was. A dream. It wasn’t real. Sam rubbed his hands down his face again, trying to banish the thoughts.

And it didn’t matter anyways, because Gabriel was dead. He only needed him for information now, to help Jack.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack was dozing in the car. The boy had already fallen into a teenager’s schedule of staying up and waking up late, and neither Sam nor Dean was about to do much to stop it. In Dean’s case, he didn’t care, and as long as the boy was on his toes when the going got tough, he wasn’t going to try to change anything. Sam decided that if he was doing something as normal and human as staying up late watching Netflix when there were no plans the next day, then he was going to be thankful. The boy was perfectly willing to get up at seven am when Dean had woken him up, but as soon as the radio was on in the car, he was out.

“We should introduce him to Claire and Alex,” Sam said quietly, watching him through the side mirror. “I think some kids his age would be good. His apparent age.”

Dean grunted over the music. Sam thought it sounded affirmative, so he decided to take it as a yes. “Give him some new opinions and show him some different worldviews. Obviously we can’t put him in school…” The boy’s eyelids fluttered like he was dreaming. Sam wondered what he was dreaming about. “But it would be good to get him some socialization besides just us.”

“Yeah. No, it’s a good plan. We’ll call Jody after this case, have her bring the girls over for a weekend. Or we can go up there. Either way.” Dean didn’t look away from the road. He looked more relaxed than he had the day before, one hand resting outside the window in the rushing air, the other on top of the wheel.

There was a redness to his eyes though, a slight sniffle in his voice, that told Sam he’d been crying. Of course, Sam didn’t say anything about it. But this was the first time that he’d gotten that sense, and if Dean was letting himself cry, even alone and without anyone to hold him, then that was a good sign.

He hoped.

Of course, it could have just been a cold coming on, which Sam desperately hoped it was not. Other than a few minor colds (and a few injuries or addictions that weren’t caused by natural viruses), Sam hadn’t been laid up sick since sophomore year of Stanford, when a flu had ripped through the dorms and left one older professor dead and most of the student population sick. Sam had been laid up for the better part of two weeks.

That was one of the few times in school he had given in and called Dean, mostly because his friends were threatening to send him to the hospital if the fever didn’t break.

Dean had showed up the next day, driving through the night and breaking into Sam’s campus suite, and Sam had woken up to a vat of homemade chicken soup.

It was only later that Sam had found out that two of his workout partners had purchased the fresh ingredients when they found Dean with a pathetic can of off-brand soup, and it was the first time that Dean had actually been able to cook without John’s constant reminders of how they didn’t have the money for luxury. His friends had demanded he invite his older brother over more often, because that had been some damn good soup. So good, in fact, that they had eaten most of it before Sam had gotten a chance.

Now he wondered if he’d gotten Dean sick, and how John had reacted to his son being so feverish he couldn’t see straight. Probably not well, if history was anything to go by.

He wondered what happened to his old workout buddies. He wondered what happened to everyone in his class. He wondered if they missed Jess as much as he sometimes did, in the darkest part of the night.

He wondered why he was suddenly thinking about it.

“So what were you dreaming about this morning?” Dean shot Sam a sidelong look. “That was some noise you made. Some might say dirty, even.”

“Dean, shut up.” Sam shot a glare at him, immediately forgetting his fondness over the chicken soup and the flu. “Seriously. The light just hit my face and it hurt.”

“Your face was shoved into your pillow, dude.”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a breath so he wouldn’t slug Dean and send the car careening off the road, and then looked out the window.

“Was it the girl from the coffee place? I noticed you guys making eyes at each other the other day.”

Sam glanced over, frowning. “Jeanette? The Starbucks manager? She’s married, dude. She has three kids.”

“Oh, so you’re talking to the Starbucks girl too?”

Sam rolled his eyes and looked back out the window. “She was asking about Jack. I told her he was our cousin.”

Dean slowly nodded, smirking lightly. “So you’re in there talking to her enough that she noticed when you started bringing Jack, huh?”

This was not something he was going to win, but if Dean was feeling good enough that he was picking on Sam, then Sam didn’t want to shut it down right away. “Yes, Dean. I’m having a steamy affair with the manager at Starbucks when I pick up my pumpkin crap latte after my morning run. Which, I did not have time for this morning, because you didn’t tell us we were getting up this early.”

Dean waved a dismissive hand. “I said bright and early, Sammy. Not my fault you were too busy having steamy dreams about Jeanette to get up in time for your run.”

Sam rolled his eyes and, once again, looked out the window, like the endless fields they were driving through were somehow more interesting than Dean’s scintillating conversation.

“Oh, don’t be a little bitch, Sam.”

This time, Sam didn’t look at Dean, because he didn’t want his brother to see the little smile on his face. It was such a familiar insult that it warmed him better than a latte ever could. “Yeah, whatever, jerk.”

 

_A very very long time ago (aka,the author was working on characterization and I need some scenes to help me out before I throw old pagans into the plot)_

“You’re making us write poetry.” Vali was fourteen, a skinny boy just brushing the edge of puberty, and he looked very unamused, gold eyes close to sparking. “You’re going out with Thor to hunt giants, and you’re leaving us here to write poetry.”

Loki ruffled the boy’s hair as he moved about the room, packing a bag of supplies. This vessel was taller than normal, and he was enjoying being able to reach the top cabinets without standing on his toes. Sigyn had chosen it, when his last one had been mauled by a wolf- or had it been crushed by a falling boulder?- and Loki had been more than happy to oblige his wife’s taste in men.

“Poetry, Vali-lalli? Or immortal art?” He couldn’t find the rune stone he’d painstakingly carved for this very trip. It had taken him ages, and quite a few blood sacrifices, to get the spell quite right, and he wanted to use it to curse the giants who were going after a village in Midgard. It was going to be hilarious.

“Dad.” He ran his fingers through ginger hair. “I suck at poetry. That stupid tutor you hired sucks. All he does is yell at me to do it one way, and when I try to do it that way, he tells me it’s still wrong and I have no taste.”

He stood on his toes to reach the back of the cabinet, brushing his fingers through the dust and spider webs. “Well, Val, I hate to break it to you, but he’s the top in the business. Odin personally gave the guy some of his magic blood poetry mead.”

Vali crossed his arms, not appreciating that Loki didn’t seem to comprehend the suffering he was going through. “You didn’t have to write poetry when you were my age.”

Loki froze, then blinked away images of the Darkness, of the crack of his wing breaking, of disembodied screams and his father’s barked commands. “Nah,” he said with a laugh. “I had a boring old upbringing in Jotunheim. Trekked through the snow behind Laufey and hunted for my food every day.”

Rolling his eyes, Vali collapsed backwards on a chair. “Okay, Dad, there’s so much wrong with that statement. One, we all know you’re not actually a frost giant. And two, I’m a prince of Asgard. I should be fighting with you, not learning how to rhyme.”

Loki glanced at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Dad, we’re not stupid.” Vali raised an eyebrow in turn. “Everybody knows what a frost giant is, and you’re not one. Plus, if you were actually a frost giant, would I have wings?”

“You’re adopted,” Loki said easily, batting the boy’s head as he moved to the other side of the room to hunt for the rune stone there. When had he gotten so messy? Clothes, art projects from the kids, various collected magic artifacts, and other knickknacks he’d taken a liking to were scattered about, without rhyme or reason, and the stupid rune stone was buried somewhere in the mess. “If you hate the guy so much, I’ll hire someone else for you. But you need to learn this stuff, Val-stone.”

“Val-stone?” Vali’s expression became even more deadpan than before.

“Like gall stone- never mind. It was funny in my head.” Loki stepped back and pursed his lips. “Did one of you brats take the rock I was working on?”

“Nari mighta.” He wasn’t to be distracted though. “Why do we have to do this poetry crap?”

He glanced over. “You want to be a real Asgardian prince, don’t you?”

Vali nodded. “Like Thor.”

Loki waved a hand dismissively. “Glad for the vote of confidence in me, kiddo. Poetry’s how Asgard passes down history. Sorry. If you want to be a part of the history, you’ll have to learn how to read and write it. That’s what you get for being born to the top.”

“You and Mom weren’t born to the top.”

“Your mom was pretty up there when I met her, and I’ve saved Thor’s life a few times, so I get a free pass.” Loki shrugged, like it wasn’t his fault. “But that means if you want to stay up here in rich luxury land, you’re going to have to study and prove to the world that you’re not just a spoiled princeling.”

“I am not spoiled.” His eyes narrowed, but it wasn’t particularly threatening on the boy’s freckled face.

Loki laughed and whipped around to mess up his hair again. “You’re a little bit spoiled, kid. That’s okay. I love you anyways.”

“Dad-” Vali groaned and tried to pull away, but Loki grabbed his arms, pulling him back into an unwanted and unrequested hug. “Stopppp. I’m fourteen-”

“That’s what Hel says, and she’s, like, older than me,” Loki said, half falling over the side of the couch in order to bury the boy in his arms. “Now do your poems, and I’ll bring you a present when I get back, huh? Where’s your brother? I gotta say bye to him and your mom before I go to Midgard.”

Vali had just gone limp, waiting for the show of affection to stop, and pointed towards the door. “Nari’s in his room. Studying.” He said it like it was the bane of all existence.

Loki snorted and ruffled Vali’s hair again before straightening up. “You’re a good kid, Val. Tell you what- work hard while I’m gone, and I’ll take you down to Midgard when I get back from this little mission.”

“Wait, really?” He hopped up, standing on the couch, hair still messy. His hopeful grin lit up the room. “You will? Just us?”

Loki grinned back. “Just us. But don’t give your mom a hard time about the schooling, alright? You gotta do it, even if it sucks.”

He nodded. If he’d known a trip to Midgard was an option, he would have complained much harder, much earlier. He didn’t even complain now when Loki snaked an arm around him in a half-hug before he headed for the doorway. “Be good, kid. I’ll get a report when I get back.”

Vali gave him a little salute, still standing atop the couch. Loki grinned and then left, heading towards Nari’s room, to say good bye to Vali’s better-behaved twin. He knocked once on the door before pushing it half open. “Hey, kiddo. I’m off with Thor. You good until I get back?”

Nari was stretched out on the bed, reading an old text on magic that he’d stolen from one of Loki’s stacks of books. One of the hounds was sprawled across the foot of the bed, across his feet, chewing on a large bone that he’d stolen from some poor maid’s stew pot. Not waiting for permission, Loki walked in and starting scratching the dog’s back. He looked up, tongue lolling, and Nari shifted at the movement, drawn from his studies. “Hey, Dad. Leaving?”

“Yeah.” Loki shoved the dog over and sat down as well. The dog abandoned the bone and flopped on Loki’s lap, like he was a lap dog and not a hundred-forty pound half-wolf. “Didn’t I tell you to stop raiding my library? You know that stuff is beyond your level.”

Nari stuck his tongue out at him and halfway sat up. He wasn’t nearly as athletic as Vali, tending towards his father’s penchant for sweet foods and luxury, and where Vali was always ready for the sparring fields, Nari was softer, preferring books to violence. “Your library is a stack of books that you steal from human monasteries. You don’t exactly keep it guarded.”

“This lump is supposed to be doing the guarding.” Loki shoved at the dog on his lap, then obliged and started running his hands over the animal’s sides. He made a low, happy growl in his throat, entire body vibrating with pleasure at attention from the god. “Don’t try anything new until I get back, alright? Your sister nearly started a zombie apocalypse trying to learn necromancy without me knowing.”

“What about stuff I already know how to do?” He sat up fully, and held out his hands, screwing his eyes shut in concentration. A flame appeared in his outstretched palms.

Loki grinned, then reached out to place his hands on either side so that their grace mingled through the touch. The flame leapt higher, sparking different colors, sending little shoots of light and color over the wall. Nari opened his eyes and made a surprised noise, although that was just for show. The little flame was the first thing Loki had taught him to control, when he was almost too young to remember.

“Long as you don’t burn the place down,” Loki said, and pulled his hands back, letting the fire extinguish itself with a little puff of smoke. “Oh, and help your brother with the poetry, would you? He’s having trouble.”

Nari groaned and flopped backwards against the pillow. “Da-aaad. He doesn’t get it. All you have to do is memorize the rhythm, and he just has no rhythm. I mean, unless he’s sword fighting, but swords and words don’t go together at all.”

Loki pursed his lips, then sighed. “There’s a trip to Midgard in it for you if you give him a hand.”

Sigyn was going to have his head when she found out he was bribing the boys again.

“Really?” Nari sat up so suddenly that the dog nearly lost his balance. “You’ll take me? I want to see the Pyramids in Egypt- I was just reading about them. They line up with the stars and…”

Loki had no idea what Nari was saying when he got into stars and astronomy, but he nodded anyways, doing his best to follow along. The boy was far smarter than he was when it came to the math behind things like that. As soon as numbers were involved in anybody else’s conversation, Loki’s eyes glazed over and he started fantasizing about Sigyn, but he tried to pay attention when his kid started talking about angles.

Because wow-wow-wow, wouldn’t it have been nice if an adult had listened to him when he was Nari’s age.

“Pyramids it is, then,” he agreed, when Nari had explained about how they were aligned for a future prophecy. “We should push one out of the way, mess up the math for the future Midgardians.”

“We should not be playing tricks on people who aren’t even born yet, Dad,” Nari said, just a hint of disapproval in his tone.

“No, you’re right. You’re a better man than I, Nari-whal.”

“Da-aaad.” He made a face at the name and lay back down with the book, only to be gathered up in a hug by the older god.

“Help your brother while I’m gone,” he reminded. Nari didn’t struggle so much at the hug, but melted into it, snaking his arms around Loki to hug him back. “The book learning doesn’t come as easy to him as it does to you. Be patient.”

Nari made an annoyed noise, but didn’t argue. There was a journey to Midgard at stake now.

“You’re a good kid, Nar.” Loki released him a moment later, and then gave the dog one last pet before pushing him off and standing. “Oh, and do you have my rune stone? Vali said you might have taken it. The one I was working on?”

Nari looked just a bit sheepish at that. “Oh. I might have detonated it in the field.”

“You… of course.” Loki sighed, shaking his head. “How’d it work?”

“It was supposed to throw frost giants into a confusion, right?”

Loki nodded.

Nari snorted. “Yeah. Didn’t affect me. More proof that we’re not actually frost giants.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “You’re adopted,” he said pettily, and then ruffled Nari’s hair and headed for the door. “Love you, kiddo.”

“Love you too, Dad.” He responded absently, already going back to the spell book.

Loki had almost made it to the front door, when his way was blocked by Sigyn, who looked irritated about something. Loki solved that by sweeping the goddess into a deep kiss, crushing her body to his, one hand wandering down her back to the curve of her ass.

She kissed him back, then nipped his lip as she pulled away. “Have you decided how we’re going to celebrate the solstice?” she asked, reaching down to link her fingers in his so he couldn’t escape the holiday discussion. “My parents are having dinner, but I know you enjoy going to the festivals with your mother, so I didn’t make any plans for certain. And honestly, I think it does the boys good to see some of their frost giant heritage. Even if you clearly don’t have a drop of frost giant in you.”

“Have you all been planning to spring this on me at once?” Loki pouted, swinging their hands to the sides. “I am clearly a frost giant. I don’t know why everyone is saying I’m not. Loki Laufeyson. Laufey is a frost giant too. Which means, I have to be a frost giant. Duh. Are you stupid, woman?”

She unmeshed the fingers of one hand to reach over his shoulder and run a finger down the nerve of one invisible wing. That had been a trick she’d learned when she was pregnant with his children, being bathed in the grace of her children. One morning, she’d awoken in shock to find that she could see the six golden rings wrapped around her, could feel and touch them, and apparently, the results had been permanent. Now he shivered at the touch, rolling his shoulder. “Okay,” she said cheerfully. “So we’ll do dinner with my parents the night before, and then we’ll go to Utgard for the day of the solstice.”

“Okay, bu-uuut…” He held up their hands, holding up one finger. “What about going to Midgard for the solstice?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Family trip! See the sights, taste the food, dance with the humans… it would be fun.”

Her eyebrow quirked higher.

“I promised the boys a trip if they work on the whole poetry deal.”

She let their hands drop and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Loki. We talked about bribery. Remember? You have to find a better way to motivate them, than by-”

There was a knock on the door.

“That’s Thor, bye!” Loki kissed her again, and then darted for the door. “We’ll talk about the solstice when I get back.”

She sighed, leaning against the wall. “Of course we will.”

Loki hesitated, ignoring the second round of knocking. “Sigyn, hun, you know I will.”

She turned her back, holding up a hand for him to stop talking. Her hips swayed as she walked back for the bedroom. He bit his lip.

Loki hesitated, then opened the door slightly. Thor stood there, arms crossed. “You said you would be in the square thirty minutes ago.”

“And I will be there. In thirty minutes.” He slammed the door in Thor’s face, then bolted after Sigyn, slipping into the bedroom just as she closed the door.

She turned to look at him. “Perhaps I can allow you Midgard,” she mused, tilting her head and glancing back at him. The low light of the coals in the fireplace cast her face into shadow. “But I’ll need something in return. After all, you are making me turn down dinner with my parents.”

He raised an eyebrow, then stepped forward, reaching out to rest his hands on her hips. “I think I can make you see things my way.”

“Oh, dear husband, whatever can you offer me that will change my mind?” She linked her arms around his neck and pouted.

And a moment later they were kissing, leaving Thor to wait outside, until one of the boys let him in and offered him food while he waited for Loki and Sigyn to finish their discussion on where to spend the holiday.

 

_In the Empty_

“HELLO! HEL-”

“Shut up!”

It was a hiss from nearby, accompanied by a clamping of a hand over Castiel’s mouth that actually shut him up. His eyes went wide, and he turned sharply, driving an elbow into the gut of his captor. He heard an oof, and then the attacker kicked the back of Castiel’s knee, and he went halfway down as something leapt atop him, limbs clamping onto his body like a spider, one arm wrapped so tightly around his throat that he couldn’t breathe.

“Val, stop it! Maybe he can help!” It was another hushed hiss, like someone trying to shout at the volume of a whisper.

The headlock loosened enough for Castiel to look around at the second speaker, who turned out, to the seraph’s surprise, to be no more than a boy. He looked young, all chubby cheeks and freckles, dressed in a fur lined jacket and snow boots. A twist around told him that his captor was a youth as well, this one more wiry and red haired. The boy made a face when they made eye contact.

“I am Castiel,” he said, plucking the boys arms off and pushing him lightly away. He danced back to stand between him and the blond boy, a protective stance. “Angel of the Lord. Who are you, and what is this place?”

The redhead glanced back at the blond, and Castiel had been around the Winchesters long enough to recognize when two people were close enough to wordlessly communicate. They were probably brothers- they both had the same gold eyes. It was the blond who spoke next. “This is the dead zone.”

Castiel glanced around at the empty blackness. “The Empty,” he said, comprehending. It made sense, he supposed. He’d felt Lucifer’s blade enter his body, had felt the split second of burning agony as his grace had been blown to pieces by the blow, and then he’d felt… nothing. He hadn’t existed.

And now he was here.

“How are you awake?” The blond pushed past the redhead, head tilted as he studied Castiel. “Nobody else has ever been awake here. It’s just endless fields of sleeping angels and demons and monsters. I don’t even know how I’m awake-”

“You kicked me and woke me up, so I punched you,” the redhead supplied helpfully.

He shot him a glare, and the redhead grinned and shrugged.

Castiel ignored the bickering. “Did you wake me?”

“No.” The blond shook his head. “It wasn’t us. We were just here, and we heard you shouting. You can’t yell here. You’ll wake up the Thing.”

Castiel tilted his head. “The Thing?”

“The Thing.” The blond, who was apparently the spokesperson of the two, nodded. “Can’t you sense it?”

Head still tilted, Castiel frowned, and reached out with his grace. If he quieted his mind, he could almost sense it, a great entity, a rise and fall of some being’s impossibly slow heartbeat. It was something cosmic and vast, grander than anything Castiel had sensed before, so ancient and terrible that his mind trembled to comprehend it.

Suddenly, he realized how Dean must have on their first meeting.

He opened his eyes, not realizing that he’d closed them. “I sense it. But I need to go back. Do you know the way?”

There was another exchange of looks, and then they both shook their heads. The redhead’s jaw tightened in frustration. “We’ve tried,” he said.

“Is anybody else awake here?” Castiel turned a circle, not worried about his back being to the dead boys. He didn’t sense any ill will from them, though frustration and fear was loud around them, a buzz that was almost tangible. But there was hope too- the redhead especially was tensed as he gazed at Castiel, like he was worried Castiel would bolt and leave them alone.

“Just us.” The sandy-haired one shoved his hands into his pockets, looking up at Castiel. “And now you too.”

That was odd, to say the least. What allowed these two random boys to remain awake when everybody else slumbered on for all eternity? “What are you?”

“What?” That was the redhead, who looked a bit offended by the question.

Castiel offered a reassuring smile, though it felt more like a grimace. He didn’t have the gift with children that Dean did. “I mean, you can’t be human, if you’re here. I don’t sense anything human about you.”

“Oh.” The redhead glanced at his brother, and who nodded imperceptibly, and then looked back at Castiel. “Half Aesir, half Jotunn. Not human. We’re gods. I’m Vali Lokison, and this is my brother, Nari.”

Castiel froze, then opened his mouth, closed it, and then tilted his head. “Lokison,” he repeated slowly. “As in, the sons of Loki?”

Nari and Vali exchanged looks, and then Vali said, “Duh. Until…” He glanced at Nari, then back at Castiel. “Until we were killed.”

Half archangel then, not frost giant, which explained why they had the power and strength to stay awake, though apparently they didn’t know the truth. Castiel looked at them again, this time paying more attention to the grace filling the two vessels. Sure enough, now that he was looking for it, he could sense Gabriel’s grace within them, that same bright energy that sparked with curiosity and irreverence. “I know your father,” he said, then corrected, “knew.”

And then he turned another circle, casting out with his grace. “He should be here somewhere, as well.”

“Shut up!” Vali grabbed his arm, and Castiel felt the boy’s grace make an attempt to stamp down his own. “If you start poking around, you’ll wake up the Thing.”

“I want to find your father,” Castiel said, looking down at him.

His eyes narrowed. “Dad’s not dead.”

“I’m sorry, but he is. He was killed a few years ago.”

Vali let go of Castiel’s arm, his brow creasing. “What? That’s not possible…”

“We haven’t been here more than a month.” Nari stepped forward, head tilted, and then frowned. “Unless time moves differently here. If time is even a concept here…” He took a deep breath. “Dad’s dead too? Loki Laufeyson. You’re sure?”

Castiel nodded. “I’m sure. He died in an attempt to stop Lucifer from ending the world. He was a hero.”

Of course, it hadn’t lasted long, and Lucifer had killed Castiel, and now the Nephilim needed him, and he was stuck in the Empty, apparently in the company of Gabriel’s two dead children. He needed to get back to Jack and Dean and Sam. And now he didn’t want to leave the boys, because even if Gabriel was on his own, permanently dead, Castiel didn’t want to leave the children behind to rot here.

Vali opened his mouth, confused, but it was Nari who next spoke. “Why was Dad fighting Lucifer?”

“That’s a long story…” Castiel glanced around. “I’ll tell you when we get back to the earth. But I was friends with your father, a long time ago. He was more involved with Heaven and angels than you’d expect-”

“We know he’s a Nephilim,” Nari said, eyes narrowing. “Officially, he’s a frost giant, but everybody knows that he isn’t. We just don’t know who his parents actually were, and he and Laufey wouldn’t tell us. But it makes sense. Angels aren’t supposed to have children, so he went into hiding, and made friends with Thor.”

Castiel paused, head tilted. “No…” he said slowly, impressed that they had deduced so much. “He’s not a runaway Nephilim. He’s an archangel. Gabriel.”

Vali pressed his hands to his mouth to stifle a loud laugh. “No, Dad’s definitely not an archangel. Archangels are badasses, and Dad’s definitely not as cool as Thor. And everybody knows Gabriel is dead. He was killed ages ago. We learned about it in history. He was destroyed during Heaven’s civil war.”

Castiel gave them a long look. “I was close with your father, back when he dwelt in Heaven,” he said, and only felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn’t realized the pressure Gabriel had been under from the other archangels. Maybe, if even one angel had shown Gabriel a bit of support, he wouldn’t have left… “I need to go back to Earth now though. I have a task I need to finish. Stay with me, and I’ll do my best to bring you back as well.”

They glanced at each other, and then Vali gave Castiel a defiant look. “How are we supposed to know we can trust you?”

Castiel hesitated, trying to think of a reason for the boys to actually believe what he said. “Your father was the only angel I knew who ate on a regular basis,” he said, going for the only obscure thing he knew about Gabriel (that had nothing to do with porn). Hopefully it still held true for when the boys knew him. “And all he liked were sweet things.”

They glanced at each other again, and he knew they’d been hooked by the twin looks of recognition. “That drives Mom crazy,” Vali said a moment later. “She keeps telling him he’s going to rot his vessel from the inside out.”

It was an odd feeling, hearing them talk about Gabriel in a context that was the complete opposite of talk in Heaven. To hear these two boys casually say Mom and Dad, referring to incredibly powerful beings, one of whom had no business having children. To hear that Gabriel not only had a wife, but had a wife who nagged at him about the sugar habit, something so domestic, so human…

He wondered if it had been a mistake to trap him in that circle, and make Gabriel return from where he’d been buried under the guise of Loki.

And then he shook off the thoughts, because it had been necessary at that time, Loki had a habit of killing people, and Castiel didn’t have time to be considering the past right now. He needed to get back.

“You said nobody else is awake here?” he asked, looking between them.

They nodded. “Just us,” Vali confirmed.

Castiel nodded, and closed his eyes. “Then I’m going to wake up the Thing, and make it send us back.”


	4. Chapter 4

_Brentwood, Kansas_

The drive had taken an extra hour, because Dean had missed the turnoff and they’d ended up driving through cornfields for ages. Dean had made several children of the corn jokes, all of which had gone over Jack’s head, and eventually they only found the town because of the giant McDonald’s sign in the middle of nowhere, pointing to the nearest fast food joint.

“Thank Chuck the almighty bastard for fast food!” Dean had exclaimed, and it was only fifteen minutes later that they were pulling into town.

The motel was a ramshackle place, and Sam found himself rifling through his bag to make sure the Deep Woods Off was still there from the last time they’d stayed overnight in a place that was more than a little likely to have bedbugs. They had, multiple times, woken up to itchy red marks all over them. Nowadays, they simply packed up and left if they found themselves in an infected room, but in the days of John Winchester…

A few minutes later, and they were sitting in the motel room, which luckily was much cleaner on the inside than first impressions had warranted. “Alright, Jack,” Dean said, from where he was leaning against one of the bedposts, a beer bottle balanced in his hand, “you’ve got point. You found the case, you run it.”

Jack was grinning ear to ear. Every few minutes he would try to steel himself into hunter expressionlessness, but then the grin would bounce right back onto his face. “Okay, okay,” he said, pulling out his laptop so he could open the article again. “So there were four victims in this case. The first two were Jenny Cartwright and Alex Weinberger.”

Two days before

“I hate haunted houses.” Jenny crossed her arms and set her feet. “I’m not going in there. I’ll hold you guy’s stuff, but no way am I going through. I’ll have nightmares for ages.”

“C’mon, Jen.” Logan lightly punched her arm. “You’re always telling us to face our fears. We’re just helping you do the same thing.”

“When I tell you to face your fears, I’m telling you to use coping strategies to reduce test anxiety, or to apply the job you don’t think you qualify for. Real stuff.” She threw her hands up in an exaggerated shrug. “Not go get the shit scared out of you by a bunch of idiots in clown masks!”

“I could use a good scare then,” Emily grumbled under her breath. “I’ve been constipated for three days now.”

“Exactly.” Jenny gestured to Emily, agreeing with her very valid point. “You two should go, and help to loosen up Em’s clogged bowels, and I’ll stay out here and hold your things.”

It seemed that the little group had come to an impasse, and it was Logan who broke it. “I’ll buy your food for you for the rest of the day if you go through with us.”

Jenny hesitated, arms still crossed.

“Remember the ice cream bar we passed earlier?” Emily glanced at Logan, and then pressed it. “Imagine. Free ice cream sundae. Any size. On us.”

Jenny pursed her lips. “Fuck, guys, I hate you.”

“Free ice cream,” Logan said in a singsong voice.

Jenny groaned and hid her face in her hands. “Fine,” she said through her fingers. “Fine. Okay. But I’m going in the middle of you assholes, and we don’t stop for anything, and you don’t abandon me.”

Logan and Emily exchanged triumphant looks, but refrained from high fiving- both knew if they acted too victorious, Jenny would back right out, feeling ganged up on. “You can even close your eyes and hold onto us,” Emily said, grabbing Jenny’s hand and steering her closer to the entrance of the haunted house. “It’ll be over in, like, three minutes tops.”

“Okay.” Jenny took a breath and nodded, letting her friends lead her into the line. She did not like this. She did not like this one bit. But, free ice cream. And she knew, logically, that nothing could hurt her. But she was not fond of these types of things, and even the least scary horror movie meant she had to sleep with the lights on. So now, standing in line, she had to steel herself for the fact that her little brother would be making fun of her for the next several nights.

But, as they moved up in the line, closer to the entrance, it was becoming more and more impossible to not murder Emily and Logan on the spot, even as they giggled with each other over something that had happened in school during the week. She missed the story, too busy psyching herself out over the ordeal that was to come, but she cracked a smile when they both laughed so they wouldn’t think she was completely angry.

Which she wasn’t, of course, because they were her best friends, but she did think she had the right to be a little bit peeved.

Ice cream, she reminded herself in the safety of her own head. Three minutes of terror, then ice cream.

Too quickly, the line moved closer to the door, and suddenly the girl in the white, frilly corset and the smudgy clown makeup was unclipping the black cord to allow their group inside. “Three?” She asked, making her voice low and raspy, and Logan gave her a thumbs up.

“Enjoy the show,” she said, and ran her fingers down Jenny’s arm, smirking behind her red makeup as the teenager flinched.

The walls inside were painted black, immediately sucking the light out of the air and plunging them into darkness a mere couple feet away from the entrance. Jenny grabbed a fistful of Logan’s sweatshirt, while Emily took up the rear. Somewhere inside, there was a scream and a loud cackle, and Jenny closed her eyes, steeling herself.

There would be a jump scare any second now. She could deal with a jump scare. It was just another teenager in a mask. Carry, from English class, worked here on the weekends- maybe she would see her classmate? If it was just Carry, it wasn’t that ba-

“Welcome!” The clown threw himself at them, all blood makeup and dirty pompoms, and Jenny’s scream nearly deafened Logan, who laughed and batted at her in mock irritation. “Here to enjoy the show, my pets? Well, step forward, and join the circus!” He reached out to touch Jenny’s hair, leering, and she screamed and buried her face in Logan’s hoodie.

Emily smacked Jenny’s arm. “Dude, it’s Chris. Your lab partner.”

The clown groaned. “Em, don’t say my name out loud, you ruin it. Keep moving, bitches. Next group is coming.”

“I hate you!” Jenny shrieked at him, but kept going as her friends dragged her forward.

Three jump scares later, she had her face buried in Logan’s hoodie, and was moving by touch alone, refusing to look up even when the multitudes of clowns laughed and leapt out and tried to follow them through the dark tunnels. It had to be almost over. There was no way that it could last this long.

She heard Logan shout in surprise, tense under her hands, and someone was laughing. Logan suddenly jerked away, throwing Jenny off him, and she shrieked, clutching at empty air. She felt fabric in her hands, and opened her eyes in relief.

Only to be looking up at a clown whose costume makeup depicted that his face was half ripped open. She shrieked and pushed him away, dancing back, but Logan and Emily were nowhere to be seen.

“Are you scared, little girl?” the half-faced clown asked, stalking closer. He was holding a blood-spattered knife- Jenny knew it was rubber, but the sight of it still threw her backwards, and she tried to run down the hall, only to have her way blocked. Instinct kicked in, and she lashed out, only to have her hand smack against smooth glass- a mirror. She was looking at herself, and the clown was moving closer in the reflection.

“Get away!” she wailed, and darted away, into the next room. Lights strobed, and she looked back, and the clown was moving closer and closer, raising the knife higher with each flash of light. She shrieked and tried to move, tripping over something- she looked at it, and realized she’d tripped and fallen over a coffin. Under her hands, the coffin started to open, the lid pushing against her, and the scream ripped through her lungs.

She scrambled back, and there was a body hanging from the ceiling- she slammed into it, and it swung back, and then back again, the weighted bag throwing her down, in front of the clown with half a face.

The clown looked around, and lowered the knife. “Hey, hey,” he said in an ordinary voice as she covered her face. “It’s fake, remember?”

“I know.” Her voice was a pathetic whimper as she covered her face.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her up. “Exit’s that way,” the clown said, spinning her around in the opposite direction she’d been running. Then he shouted, “Hey, Kelly! Don’t jump this chick, I think she’s having a panic attack!”

“Got it, dude,” came a muffled reply from down the hall. “Get her outside before she pukes like the last guy.”

“I’m not gonna puke,” Jenny grumbled. She still refused to look up, the visuals too much, but the ordinary voices did more than enough to calm her.

“That’s what the last guy-”

There was a wet thunk.

Suddenly there was a weight on her, sending her to the ground. Jenny shrieked, falling back, and clutched at the fabric of the clown’s shirt as he fell against her. Someone was laughing- and the clown wasn’t moving, pinning her to the ground- and she couldn’t move, and the laugh was too much.

And then the weight was gone, and there was a hand clamped to her arm, dragging her even as she screamed at it to stop. She clawed and thrashed, and still the steely grip dragged her through the darkness, until it threw her. She hit a wall and collapsed. When she looked up, face painted like a skull, was leering at her as he closed a metal gate, locking her in the tiny cell. He let out a cackle and then left, leaving her alone in a cell lit only by a flickering torch in the hall outside.

She wasn’t alone. There was someone else, laying in the corner.

Panting, heart racing a mile a minute, she reached over to touch the body. It was the half-faced clown from earlier. Some of the costume makeup was peeling off, and his skin was clean and unbroken underneath.

She touched his back, and her fingers came back red. She covered her mouth, stifling a sob, and then reached out for his neck.

There was no pulse.

 

_In the Empty_

It wanted to sleep. It needed to sleep. And yet, and yet, irritations were flying thick and fast, and It was rapidly finding Itself more and more aware.

First, there had been that damn archangel.

The older one, the Healer, It liked her. She was quiet. She slept peacefully, and dreamt quietly, and It could see why that loud loathsome fly who called himself God had liked the archangels, because this was peaceful, sleeping away amongst the quiet calm she cast around her resting spot.

But, oooh, the second one to join, the youngest archangel, the Messenger- It did not like that one, no, not at all.

He was loud. His dreams were full of screams- of people engaged in loathsome, cacophonous activities- fighting and dying and sex and drugs- and he slept shallowly, struggling to wake each time his dreams became too loud. He was an irritation, his constantly calling out to the people he’d lost. Names flew through his head- SigynKaliSamThorSamNariValiSamSigynCastielHelFenJörKaliThorLuciferSamSleip- and they interrupted Its dreams like pinpricks, like a radio played on repeat too far off.

And then, one of the names had answered, and It could hear quiet voices, just on the edge of Its consciousness, and that rankled within Its mind, the voices, the voices that were clearly conscious, but the Messenger was still asleep, and the voice seemed to calm him, because whenever the voice left, he was quieter, more at peace, so It tried to ignore it, because eventually, the Messenger would be as quiet as the Healer, and then they could all get some peace.

And It was so focused on the Messenger’s stirring that It didn’t notice that once, when the second consciousness was there, he had called out into the black, and something had felt. It didn’t notice the twins, the unformed archangels, because they had been there for so long, dreaming the quiet dreams of children, until It heard their voices, muffled and soft, whispers in the dark.

And It sensed them move, but they were quiet, and their unformed minds, unmolded and young, were barely a buzz, and It knew that, given a few days, they would drift back into unconsciousness.

The problem was not the awoken children, but the Messenger, who was so damn loud all the damn time-

And they went back to sleep. It felt them lay down, felt them doze off-

Until a seraph’s voice had ripped through the blackness.

“HELLO? HELLO? HEL-”

“Shut up!”

And then they had quieted, but It could still hear the voices, the conscious voices, and this was all the Messenger’s fault, because he had woken up the brats in the first place, and It didn’t know what woke up the seraph, but It did not like it, and why were they still talking? The voices grated, worse than the Messenger’s dreams, and It wanted to scream, because everything was loud and the peace was broken and everybody was going to wake up and It just wanted to sleep…

And then, horror of horrors, the seraph shouted yelling again.

“HELLO? HEY, ASSHAT! WAKE UP!”

And his shout rippled through the darkness, and It heard sleeping things stir. The Messenger nearly woke- the monstrous beast that was the youngest, most annoying archangel lifted his head and felt at the air, grace reaching out, and the Healer, somewhere, was irritated, rolling over. And elsewhere, demons stirred, their dark energies scenting the air, and angels, dead at one another’s hands, started to move.

It would not stand for this. It needed sleep.

“I feel you,” the seraph growled, turning in a circle. “I know you’re there.”

It appeared, a pained grimace on Its face. “Hello.”

The seraph turned, moving so he was between It and the two awoken children, neither of whom argued. Smart boys, quiet boys, unlike their obnoxious mosquito of a Messenger father. “What are you?” His voice was a growl, a clear threat.

“Oh, just your friendly neighborhood cosmic being,” It said. “And you’re not supposed to be awake, Castiel, boyos.”

The boys backed up a step, Vali keeping Nari behind him. It made a little disapproving noise. “No, no, Castiel. The kiddos need to nap, and you do as well.”

“I need to go back to earth,” Castiel growled. “And you’re going to send me there.”

 

_Roughly a century before_

“Come one, come all! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! Tonight’s performance will boggle the mind and horrify the senses! You’ll want to scream, and yet be unable to look away! My freaks come from all over the globe, hideous monstrosities that will terrorize the imagination! Three nights only- get your tickets now, before they’re gone!”

Marcus Hale smiled winningly at the gathering crowd, sweeping his top hat in a grand gesture to his personal assistant, the freak Loretta Cavanaugh. She was an acrobat, cartwheeling through the crowd to push flyers into people’s hands, her short, glittering dress sending shoots of lights that dazzled the eyes and the senses.

She flipped through the air, landing in front of a man and grinning at him as she handed him the flyer, letting her hand linger on his. His gaze moved slowly up from her cleavage to her face, expecting something as lovely as her body-

And he stumbled back with a yell of surprise.

Someone had slashed open the corners of her mouth, ripping it open from the corners of her perfect lips to her cheekbones. A few stitches held her cheeks closed, but her teeth were still visible through the scarred, reddened wound. It was a gruesome visage, beauty slashed by violence.

“What’s wrong, sugar?” she asked, reaching up to tap him on the nose. “Ain’t never get touched by a pretty girl before?” She leaned up close, and with each movement of her jaw, the wound stretched and closed. “I can fix that if you come tonight.”

He swallowed, his hand closing on the pamphlet, and she tapped him on the nose again, then back flipped away.

Somebody in the crowd clapped, and Loretta leapt up to land lightly on Marcus’s shoulders, her arms thrown out. “Come, everybody! Join me, tonight! You will be awed beyond your wildest dreams!”

A few other people joined the clap, and somebody whooped. As they queued up to buy tickets (or, in a few cases, turned away in disgust), Loretta hopped off Marcus’s shoulders and continued to cartwheel and handspring through the crowd, letting her touch drift across faces and hands before exploding into glittering motion again.

And then, before she could bore the crowd with simple acrobatics, she whipped out a deck of cards, seemingly from midair. “Hey there, kid,” she said, bending down and fanning out the deck. “Pick a card.”

He clung to his mother, not looking at her face, but hesitantly, reached out and took one.

“Now, don’t show me, but remember it.”

He nodded, and there was a hush as the crowd leaned in. She turned in a circle, letting people touch the deck, showing them that it was real, as the boy showed the card to his mother. Then he gave it back to her, careful to keep the face turned down.

And it vanished back into the deck.

Loretta winked at him, and then did a back handspring away, seemingly vanishing the deck.

“My, my, my,” she called when she landed, getting the attention of a few more passersby. “What’s this- sir? What’s that in your pamphlet?” She turned sharply, to the first man she’d talked to, reaching out.

He jumped, surprised at being put on the spot again, and opened the pamphlet slowly.

A card fluttered out.

The boy darted forward before Loretta had a chance to pick it up. He squatted down and studied it intently, then waved it in the air. “It’s my card!”

It was a half hour or so later that Marcus had sold out the tickets for two of the three shows, and he was flipping money through his fingers as he looked around for Loretta. “We done good, sweetheart,” he said, walking back towards the black car that had carried them into the square. He reached out to slide a bill across the wound on her face when she fell into step with him. “We’re gonna be rich.”

She smoothed out her skirt over the tight undergarments she wore underneath, and pushed his hand away. “You’re gonna be rich,” she corrected, raising an eyebrow. “I’m gonna keep being a freak.”

“Oh, Loretta. So angry at the world.” Marcus opened the passenger door of the car for her, and then got into the driver’s side himself, setting his hat on the seat between them. “Don’t you know you became a star? You’re my star. You’re the greatest performance in my circ-”

“Can it, asshole.” She reached into the glovebox to pull out a box of cigarettes, and lit one as he drove, using her hand to cup around the baby flame so it wouldn’t go out in the wind. “You and I both know if my father hadn’t lost his mind, I’d be doing movies.” She took a long drag, then blew the smoke into the air. It streamed behind them, from between her lips and the gaps in her ruined cheeks.

Marcus shot a glare towards her, and then looked forward.

Both of them were well aware that they needed each other, in the most horrific way possible. Marcus needed a showstopper, a freak that would catch the eye of the crowd, horrify them and draw them in. Loretta needed a show, a crowd to please, a paycheck to live on. Together, they had created a monstrosity of a performance, which would be in town for three nights only, folks! Get your tickets!

And yet there was something odd about the tent when they pulled up to it.

Odder than normal.

“It seem quiet to you?” Loretta looked around, then hopped out of the car, stamping out the butt of her cigarette in the grass. A little tendril of smoke rose into the air. “Oh, wait. The twins aren’t practicing. Pity. They’ll probably fall again tonight when they try to make the tower then. The crowd’ll love it.”

Marcus let out a long breath, and flipped the top hat in his hands before putting it back on. “Damn. The freaks are probably trying to stage a coupe again.”

Loretta didn’t look concerned, walking towards the tent. “The poor, stupid freaks,” she said, like she wasn’t one of them herself. “Shall we see what we’re up against this time, Ringmaster?”

“With pleasure, my lovely assistant.”

She raised an eyebrow, rejecting the complement, and then threw the curtains aside, walking into the largest of the tents.

It was no Barnum and Bailey’s, but it was a ring, surrounded by several tiers of seats. A few pedestals stood in the middle, meant to display the four armed spider man as he danced and there was a high wire overhead, where Loretta and the tiny girl would twirl around each other in a death defying display of feminine grace.

But right now, the tent was dark and empty.

Marcus joined Loretta where she stood in the entrance, looking around. “I told them that they were to rehearse while we were gone,” he said through his teeth.

“I’m aware,” Loretta responded, glancing over. “I was there.”

Marcus walked out into the ring, and then there was an echoing crash as the spotlight turned on, landing directly on the pair.

“Come one, come all, to this horrible display of human indecency,” a voice exclaimed from the sky.

The pair glanced at each other, and then looked around. “Who’s there?” Loretta demanded, but in the shadows, with the light on them, she could see nothing.

“Who’s there? None other than the greatest show master himself!”

A man dropped from the sky, onto the edge of the spotlight. He bowed, sweeping a hat down in a deep and cocky gesture. “Welcome, lady, gent, to my own little show.”

“Who the hell are you?” Marcus surged forward, grabbing the newcomer by his lapels. It was a smaller man, all slick hair and shimmering suit. Stage makeup was dark around his gold eyes. He grinned, letting Marcus hold him for a moment, and then snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, Loretta was standing on one podium, and Marcus on the other. There was a stirring in the dark, and when Loretta looked around, she could see the freaks walking out into the front row seats. The eight armed man threw a tomato, and it splattered over Marcus.

“You’ll pay for that!” Marcus surged forward, ready to hit the spider-man, only to be jerked back- his ankles were chained to the podium.

“Now, now, now.” The gold eyed man walked in a slow, predatory circle around them. “What a crowd we have here tonight.”

The bearded woman cheered at that. Her voice echoed through the darkness of the tent, which suddenly seemed much bigger.

“I said, WHAT A CROWD WE HAVE HERE TONIGHT!” He threw his arms up, leaping atop the podium with Loretta, grinning like a madman. The freaks shouted and clapped in response. Loretta ground her teeth together, then made a grab for him, fingers twisting in the shimmering fabric of his suit.

“I don’t know who or what you are,” she hissed, face an inch from his, “Or what kind of sleight of hand you’ve pulled to chain us, but you’re going to pay.”

“Oh, I’m going to pay, hmm?” He cocked his head to the side, so he was looking at the audience. “The lady says I’m going to pay!”

Laughter.

The crowd was bigger now. With a shock, Loretta realized she could see Evelyn and Maisy, the Siamese twins who had taken fever and died the year before. Their form flickered around the edge. And there was Castor, the Fat Man who had fallen from the high wire. She took a shaky breath, and looked back at the stranger, unwilling to search for more faces. “What are you?”

“Sweetheart, I’m your reckoning,” he said, patting her ragged cheek.

Then he hopped off the podium, and she nearly fell, unbalanced, ankles chained.

“Now let’s have a show, huh?” He walked in a circle. “You!” He pulled off his hat and swept it forward to point at Corrinne, the new Fat Lady. “You look like a woman with good taste. What’s your favorite performance?”

She glanced around, cheeks coloring, and ducked a little, not having expected the attention. “Oh, I don’t know… ask someone else…” Her voice trailed off.

The strange ringmaster flickered, and suddenly he was in front of her, his coattails fluttering in an unseen wind as he reappeared. “I’m asking you, sweetheart,” he said, and this time, there was nothing mocking about the pet name. He smiled, leaning against the short wall that separated the ring from the crowd. “What’s your fantasy of revenge?”

She looked panicked, glancing around for help. “I don’t have one. I just work here… they’re not that bad, if you ignore Marcus trying to grab you whenever he walks by…”

He huffed, rolling his eyes, though it was a roll that seemed to go through his whole body, sending his head and shoulders back. “You’re a good person, you know that?” He touched her shoulder, and it seemed to Loretta that she grew taller, that a peaceful smile spread across her face, that she was above the world. “Go forth, then, my lady. Be free of this curséd place!”

“Corrinne, you don’t go anywhere,” Marcus growled. “You signed a contract.”

She looked between Marcus and the stranger, and then took a deep breath, standing up, and hoofing towards the door. Marcus made a growling noise in his throat. “You signed a contract!”

Corrinne was gone a moment later. The curtain fluttered behind her, and then she was gone.

“Anyone else?” The new ringmaster turned, arms spread wide to the crowd. “Who wants to have a show?”

“Um- by a show, do you mean you’re killing them?” The tiny lady was leaning against the rail, looking around. “I thought you were just going to shake them up a little, but you actually look crazy now, so-”

“I’m not crazy.” The ringmaster shot a glare in the direction of the doll-like girl. Out of the corner of her eye, Loretta saw the extra faces in the crowd vanish. The dead were gone.

So he was a magician of some sort.

Loretta was used to magic. Her father had been a magician, before he’d gone insane, and he’d been fond of tricks. There were tricks with mirrors, with lights, with chains and locks and cards. They were showmen first and foremost, and had to be dealt with as such.

And she knew, as soon as he lost control of whatever trick he’d pulled with the dead, that he was going to kill her if she couldn’t get control of him. He was a psychopath.

But Loretta was not the timid girl she had been when her father had lost his mind and slashed her face. Now she was a freak as well.

There was already a hairpin in her fingers as she gave her freaks a cheery wave and bent backwards. These were easy locks- the gold eyed man hadn’t put much thought into them, and as they fell away from her ankles she flipped her body over, doing a handspring off the podium to land in front of the stranger. “Hate to break it to you, sugar, but you are crazy.”

His jaw clenched almost imperceptible, but if Loretta could read a crowd, she could read a single person, and ooooh, the bastard hadn’t been expecting that, had he? She leapt backwards, landing on her hand, kicking him in the chin as she flipped back to her podium. “Now, we have a show tonight, so if you could be so kind as to leave and never return…”

He rubbed his chin and eyeballed her. Loretta smiled sweetly, tilting her head so the open scars would be thrown into shadow. “This is my show, sweetheart. And I won’t have some new ringmaster coming in and ruining it for me.”

“Your show?” Marcus’s voice was a high growl. “Your show? This is my show, you bitch-”

“Can it!” She held her fist up in the air, and then stalked closer to him. “You and I both know that this show would be nothing without me, and you and I also know that I need a non-freak to book the events. So you’ll shut up.”

She stepped back. “Somebody get Corrinne back in here! And you-” Loretta turned to the strange man. “You’ve got some skills there. You can sign on with us, or you can leave. Pronto.”

His eyes narrowed, and he glanced at the small crowd.

Loretta followed his gaze, and she sighed, long and hard. Her ruined face was in shadows. “Let me see,” she said slowly. “This stranger shows up, promising you better wages and more show times, and maybe complements you a few times and tells you that you’re not freaks?”

There was a nervous shuffle.

“Look at us!” She turned in a circle. “I’m a hideous mess. You have four arms! You’re not even four feet tall! You’ve got a beard! We’re freaks! This is our place in the world, and nothing can stop-”

A tomato splattered against her face.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Juice leaked through the wounds into her mouth, and she could taste it, ripe and rotten. She almost gagged.

“You’re not a freak.” It was the four armed man who spoke, eyes narrowed. “You have a couple scars, sure, but us freaks, we gotta band together. And you’ve never once taken our side. You slept your way into being Hale’s favorite, and you don’t even know our names, bitch.”

The tomato dripped from her cheeks to her dress, warm and wet.

Loretta smiled through the slime. “There’s a show tonight, bitches. Do you want to cancel it?”

“Oh, no.” The strong man stood, cracking his knuckles once again. His voice was deep and sonorous. “We plan on performing tonight. We’re just going to have two fewer performers.”

The spider man smiled and stepped over the rail, followed by the strong man and the bearded woman. Only the short woman, the doll woman, didn’t follow. She hung back, hiding her eyes.

But she said nothing against the crime that was about to be committed.

Loretta took a step back.

And Loki was suddenly up in the seats, sucking on a lollipop as he watched the slaughter. “You like this, babe?”

Kali looked over at him, deadpan. “All you did was incite them to murder their superiors. You did nothing of value, and now there’s blood on your and their hands.”

He grinned and raised an eyebrow. Down below, the man Marcus screamed as he was torn apart.

“It is a little hot,” she admitted.


	5. Chapter 5

_Present day, in an abandoned field several miles outside of Brentwood_

“You’re a pretty thing. Do you have any talents?”

Jenny was sitting in a chair. There was nowhere to run- though she wasn’t bound, there was only one doorway to the tent, and it was blocked by a man who was bigger than any man she’d ever met. She’d seen him benching a car when she was led inside, and each time she glanced back, he smiled at her, a cruel smile, like he knew exactly how much strength it would take to break her in half.

And yet, he was less scary than the woman sitting in front of her, at the little card table with a tablecloth draped over it. She was dressed in slacks and a blouse, the picture of business professional, except for her face.

One year, for Halloween, Jenny had been the Joker, and she’d gone all out. She’d raided the costume makeup from Party City, and spent three hours sitting on the floor with a mirror, slicing open her cheeks layer by layer of red paint. It had been a masterpiece, a gruesome visage, her proudest moment of art, and to this very day, one of the selfies she’d taken remained as her Instagram profile.

This woman, sitting on the other side of the table and flipping through paperwork, had taken a quicker route to get to the Joker’s smile. Each time she spoke, Jenny could see her teeth through the loose stitching that held the flesh in place.

“Talents, sugar?” Loretta’s eyes flickered black when she looked up, and Jenny took a deep, shaky breath. She couldn’t run. There was nowhere to run. “If you have none, we’ll just toss you to the lizard boy and call it a night. Poor thing got the taste for human flesh, and now he won’t eat unless it’s screaming first.”

“I got him to eat a cat the other night,” the strongman said from the doorway. “But that was because nobody fed him in a while.”  
Loretta shot him a black-eyed look, and he shrugged.

Jenny’s mouth was dry. She felt faint. She’d been here for three days, and, while they gave her fresh water, she couldn’t eat as long as she was in the cage with the clown boy. All she could smell was his corpse. It made her eyes water to think about it, even outside the trailer that served as a prison. “I… I can do makeup really well,” she said, looking down at the ground. “I dunno… that’s all. I’m sorry.” She added the last one in. “Please don’t feed me to the lizard boy.”

“Makeup, hmm?” Loretta tilted her head. “Emmett, do we have need of a makeup artist?”

The strongman considered the question. “You were mad at the one we have now. You were threatening to throw him to the lizard boy.”  
“Ah, you’re right. I forgot.” She snapped her fingers. “Perfect. At tomorrow’s show, we’ll do a live feeding of the lizard boy, and you can be our new makeup artist.”

Jenny squeaked. “Please don’t-”

“Please don’t what? Feed your predecessor to the lizard boy?” Loretta smiled sweetly. Her gums glistened through the scars. “We need to feed someone to the lizard boy.”

“But-”

“Don’t argue, sugar.” Loretta stood. “We have a sold out show tomorrow night, and I don’t plan on disappointing. And be happy- we originally kidnapped you to feed to the lizard boy!”

“But from a haunted house?” Jenny glanced up. Her heart was beating a mile a minute. “Why did you kidnap me from a full haunted house?”

Loretta winked. “Oh, sugar. That was just us having a bit of fun.”

 

_Brentwood, in the motel room_

“So we should do the thing where you lie and say that you’re FBI agents so that people will tell us the things that aren’t in the article,” Jack said, looking between Sam and Dean, hopeful that he was making the right decision. “Then we can go investigate the crime scene, and see if there’s any clues. We should check for EMF.” He paused, looking between them for approval.

Dean took a swig of his beer. “Yeah, don’t see anything wrong with that,” he said as he set it back on the side table, not bothering with the coaster. “Get your suit on, Sammy.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but picked up his bag and unzipped it.

“Sammy,” Dean groaned. “Did you shove it into your bag?”

“We used the last garment bags on the last case,” Sam pointed out. “I folded it-”

“Shut up, bitch.” Dean took another swig of beer and then started hunting around for an ironing board, ignoring Sam’s grumble about how he’d folded it neatly and Dean really didn’t need to do the ironing, and if he ironed it with beer again, Sam was going to hit him.

He didn’t know if Dean was acting closer to normal because he’d let himself cry all night, or if he was suddenly much better at faking it, but he didn’t want to test the waters too much. If Dean was having a genuinely good day, then he would play along.

After all, Castiel was gone, permanently this time. And the sooner Dean accepted that…

There was a lump in his throat at the thought, and he didn’t speak when Dean stole his white shirt from his hands. Castiel was actually gone this time. Sam hadn’t even had a moment to realize that, so caught up in Mary’s disappearance and Dean’s bereavement and Jack’s training…

Castiel was gone.

Sam got up, almost stumbling, and muttered something about having forgotten his wallet in the car. Dean glanced at him, and shot an insult in his direction, but Sam missed it in his rush to get outside.

The air smelled like cornfields and fall. A couple of crows were arguing over a roadkill possum, cackling angrily at each other. Sam took a deep breath, closing the door behind him, and walked over to the car, setting a hand against the handle to steady himself.

Castiel was dead.

He let out a slow breath.

Castiel was dead.

The door to the motel room opened. “Hey, dude, your wallet’s in your bag.” Dean leaned out, and then frowned when he saw Sam leaning against the car. “You good, man?”

Sam grit his teeth, closing his eyes, and then let out another breath. “Yeah. Oh, didn’t realize it was there. I’ll be right over.”  
Castiel was dead.

And Sam needed to hold it together, because Dean was having a good day. He took another breath, letting the oxygen travel all the way down to his stomach, and then let it out. Shooting Dean a smile, he turned to walk back to the motel room. “Yeah, didn’t realize I moved it.”

Castiel was dead.

 

_In the Empty_

“Where are you? I can sense you.” Castiel turned a circle, one hand out in front of the boys. Loki’s children. Gabriel’s children. They stuck close to him, and it was a testament to how they’d been raised that they were letting the adult help them. Neither shoved him away, or declared that the fight was their own. They were clinging to him- he could feel a hand on his elbow, though he wasn’t sure which one it belonged to.

They were used to the adult protecting them. They trusted Castiel because he had known their father.

And that, more than anything, made Castiel determined to help them, because if they had trusted Gabriel that much, then that meant that Gabriel hadn’t pulled the absent father routine that was so popular amongst the pagan gods. He hadn’t impregnated some woman and abandoned her. He had been there for these children, protected them, loved them.

Until they were killed.

And, as many issues as Castiel had with Gabriel (and he had a very long list, starting with Gabriel’s attitude towards Dean), the one thing he had no issue with was the children. Because who was he to judge?

“Show yourself!” He turned again, trying to keep between the boys and the being, the Thing as they had called it, but it was impossible- the Thing was everywhere, was everything. Surrounded them, enveloped them in soft, heavy darkness. It was almost safe, a place to lay down and sleep, and yet there was a darker sense to it.

This thing was old, ancient, and so vast and terrible that it made Castiel’s head ache to think about. If Castiel was a wavelength of light the size of the Chrysler building, then this being was the entire galaxy.

And when he turned again, he found himself looking at… himself.

“What are you?” It was a snarl as he held a hand out, blocking Gabriel’s boys from the being that had scared them into quiet.

“Oh, just your friendly neighborhood cosmic being,” it said. It was casual enough, but there was an undercurrent that set Castiel’s feathers on end. “I just woke up, and I thought, what a grand day for going to bed! But then there was an angel yammering on… and then I thought to myself, why is it even awake? Nothing wakes up here! Nothing has ever woken up here. And yet, here we are.”

Castiel frowned, although that wasn’t a stretch from his normal neutral expression. “I need to go back to Earth.”

“No- no, no, no.” It held up a hand, and only the slight quiver let Castiel know that there were miles of crazy beneath the surface. “What you need to do is to sleep. Nice, peaceful, dark, silent sleep. So just lay down, Castiel. Lay your pretty face on the ground and take a nap.”

Eyes narrowed, Castiel stepped forward. “No. You will send me back to earth. The boys and me.”

It pursed its lips, looking upwards like it was thinking very hard about that. “Hmm. No. No, in fact, I’m going to tell you one more time to go to sleep. You being awake is like a… like a gnat, buzzing around, shrieking in my ear. I can’t have it! I like sleep. I. Need. Sleep. And you, all talky talky talky, are not sleep.”

“I’m not going back to sleep,” Vali said before anyone had any time to respond. “Nope. I’m gonna go be alive again.”

The Empty vanished and reappeared on the other side. “Are you sure about that, boyo?” He reached forward, and Vali smacked at his arm, dancing backwards. “Do you know what the world is like right now?”

Castiel moved an arm between the boy and the Empty, eyes narrowed. “Leave him alone and send us back.”

 

_On earth_

Castiel groaned, eyes closed against the sudden brightness, fingers closing on the blades of grass.

Blades of grass.

His eyes shot open, and he was sitting up in a moment, taking a deep breath of the fresh, green air. He was outside. He was alive.

He was alive.

“I can’t believe that worked.” One of the boys, the redhead, was already awake- Castiel couldn’t remember which was which. The blonde was a bit smaller, floppy haired and observant, while the other was taller by an inch or two, athletic, reddish hair a tangle of loose curls. Both were freckled, and both had gold eyes, though they were a few shades darker than Gabriel’s, Castiel now realized. More natural to the world. The redhead was already bouncing to his feet. “That actually worked! We’re alive! Nar, wake up!”

Castiel filed that away. Nari: the blond. Vali: the redhead. He repeated it in his head a few times to remember, and hoped that their personalities would be different enough for them to not blend together.

Nari made an irritated noise and batted at Vali’s foot, pushing himself up as he blinked blearily at the light. “Wow,” he said.

Vali was a flurry around them, trying to memorize every detail of the world. One moment he was standing still, staring up at the sun, eyes watering with the burn, and the next he was on his hands and knees, poking at an anthill in the grass, and the next he was chasing a butterfly. Castiel caught him by the back of the shirt before he could lose the boy.

“If I didn’t believe you about knowing Loki before,” Nari said, standing and brushing the dirt off his pants, “Now I do. I didn’t know anybody could just annoy a cosmic being into giving them stuff.”

Vali tried to twist out of Castiel’s grip, but he glanced back. “You didn’t know that? I do it to Dad and Thor all the time.”

“How we escaped doesn’t matter,” Castiel interrupted, before they could get too far into it. He was trying to blink away the flashbacks, his failures, the reasons why he should have stayed. Dean needed him. He needed to keep telling himself that. “We are back.”

“I wanna see the future,” Vali said, still trying to twist out of Castiel’s grip. “Future Midgard!”

Nari was silent a moment. “Dad’s not here.” His voice was quiet, barely audible, but Vali heard and froze, eyes suddenly going wide as he realized the reality.

The sound of wingbeats interrupted the moment of silence, and then they were no longer alone.

 

_Brentwood, Kansas_

“I don’t like this.” Sam hovered outside the gate of the amusement park, looking inside.

Dean paused, one hand on the gate to push it open. “You don’t like what?” He glanced inside, and then back at Sam. “Shit, dude. Seriously? Still?”

“Shut up.” Sam took a few steps backwards, then ran his fingers through his hair, taking a deep breath. “You wonder why I don’t complain about taking the car everywhere when we could take a plane. Remember that two days in a car for that werewolf case we just did? That would have been a few hours by plane.”

“We can’t take a plane, bitch.” Dean crossed his arms, triumphant. “Legally, we’re dead. You think they’ll let us through an airport when our faces pop up in the system?”

Sam huffed. “Yeah, well you’re a jerk.”

Jack looked between them, trying to follow the conversation, but he was missing several years of context. “Shouldn’t we go in?” he asked when he judged that there was a break in the conversation. “The police are looking at us.”

“Yeah. We should.” Dean elbowed Sam and pushed the gate open, striding into the park. “Officers,” he said, looking between them. “I’m Agent Mercury, and this is my partner, Agent May, and our trainee, Agent Deacon.”

“Hello,” Jack said politely, holding out a hand and giving the police a winning smile.

They glanced at each other, and then the cop in front reached out to shake the boy’s hand.

“He okay?” He dropped Jack’s hand and nodded at Sam, who was several shades paler than his normal skin tone.

“Fine.” Sam moved so Dean was between him and the clown statue that dominated the main square of the amusement park. “Getting over a bug. Can you give us a rundown of what happened here, Officer…?”

“Mayfield,” the cop filled in. He gestured past the statue. “Couple rides down that way, there’s a haunted house. All bloody clown stuff, you know, that the kids like these days.”

Sam winced.

“My son was just turned down for a job there…” Officer Mayfield glanced upwards, like he was thanking God. “Too many kids working for them to take on more this year.” He shook his head, and looked back at Jack. “He’s about your age. Anyways…” He shook his head.

“Couple days ago, this local girl goes in. Jenny Cartwright. She’s a sophomore in high school.”

“She goes in, and never comes out.” Dean filled in the blanks.

Mayfield nodded. “Yep. And before you say it, she’s not the kind to run away. Hardworking kid. I know her family. The disappearance wasn’t reported until the end of the night. In their statement, her friends said they had to press her into going through, and they assumed she had ditched them inside, like she didn’t go all the way through. She wasn’t answering her phone, but if she was mad, well… you know how teenagers are.”

Dean gave Jack a pointed look, despite the fact that he was supposed to be masquerading as a student in his twenties, and not a student in his teens. Jack looked confused, and, to be fair, he had a right to be. Being a few months old meant that he hadn’t even made it to the terrible twos.

“It was her parents who filled out the missing persons report,” Mayfield continued. “Later that night, when she didn’t get home and her friends didn’t know where she was. We searched the park after hours, but there’s no sign of her. No footage from inside either. But we did find her phone in the corner- someone had crushed it so we couldn’t get any information, but her friends said she stored her learner’s permit inside the case, and sure enough, there it was.”

“What about the second vic?” Dean asked, taking point. Sam was doing okay- the clown statue was just a statue after all, but now he was thinking about it.

“Alex Weinberger, yes.” Mayfield nodded. “He was working the haunted house. Eighteen, going off to college next year. We didn’t get the call that he was missing until a day later. His parents assumed he was off with friends, and they only realized he was gone when he didn’t pick up his phone multiple times. He was scheduled to work a shift from four pm to ten pm. He clocked in, but he never clocked out. We went over the footage from inside, but there’s not much. It’s just a few scare cams in places, and those don’t catch anything but screaming customers, and there was no camera in the room he was working.” Mayfield paused, taking a breath. “That was the same room her phone was found. I’m guessing, whatever happened, happened there.”

“And the other two?” Dean prodded a bit more. “The report we read said there were four missing people.”

Mayfield’s cheeks colored a bit. “Ah. Yes. Well, we were on high alert, you understand, and…”

“And?” Sam jumped back in, having slowed his heartrate back down to a normal level. He stoically did not look in the direction of the ridiculously realistic statue.

Clearing his throat, Mayfield glanced away. “Well, they were found the next morning in someone’s field.” He hesitated. “Naked.”

“Any wounds?” Sam was ready to flash his badge and go inspect the bodies. He’d take a dismembered corpse to a clown statue, any day.

“Just embarrassment.” Mayfield rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. They were just… erm… shacking up. That’s why they make you delay the missing persons report for adults. We jumped the gun a little on that one.”

Jack tilted his head. “Sha-mmf.”

“I’ll explain when you’re older,” Sam said, and dropped his hand from Jack’s mouth. Jack gave him a slightly affronted look, but otherwise held his question to himself.

Dean pretended he didn’t notice what had just happened between Sam and Jack. “So there are two victims, both teenagers, both taken from this haunted house. It possible that one of them grabbed the other one, or that they’re together?”

Mayfield shrugged. “Look, I’m sure you know as well as any of us that anything’s possible. Everyone has secrets. We just gotta find these kids before anything happens to them. They’re our responsibility. I hope you guys find something more than we did. Haunted house is this way.” He waved at one of the other officers to tell him that he was going, and then started down the path. “Let us know anything we can do to help. I’ll pull files, information… we’ve already interviewed the kids and the owner, but I’m sure they won’t mind if you guys want to double check. Most of the time I’d say we were thorough, but this time… I mean, they were kids. If we missed something that you guys can pick up on, I’ll celebrate.”

Sam hesitated as soon as the haunted house came into view. He didn’t normally have a problem with haunted houses. He dealt with things scarier than jump scares on a regular basis. But this was a clown based haunted house, and the paintings on the outside of the blood-spattered circus clowns were absolutely not his favorite thing. But there was no real choice, and, heart rapidly sinking, he followed everyone in.

Luckily for the unfortunate hunter, the lights were all on and there were no performers. Unluckily, the decorations were still there, and the noise he made when he caught sight of the life-size doll hanging from the ceiling by a noose was not a noise that should have ever been emitted by a grown man’s throat.

“Dude,” said Dean, glancing back.

Jack paused, head tilted. “Do you want to wait outside?”

Now Mayfield was looking at Sam too, and his skin tone shifted from a sickly white to an embarrassed red. He shoved past Dean, gritting his teeth. “Let’s see the crime scene.”

True to Mayfield’s word, there was no sign of anything amiss in the room were Alex had been stationed. The floor was cement, but there was so much mud and dirt and dust and sticky spilled drinks that even if there was blood, forensics would have to go over it with a black light and hope that there wasn’t any other organic fluid to ruin the results.

“This is where the phone was found,” Mayfield said, gesturing to the corner of the room, next to a wall of mirrors. There was a coffin in the corner, hanging open, where a performer in a top hat would normally leap out at unsuspecting passerbys. It was empty, and the stains on the fabric inside were nothing more than food and drink from performers who didn’t listen to the no-eating-on-shift rule.

In other words, it was a dead end.

“We can take it from here,” Sam said, tone rivalling Dean’s in gruffness as he refused to look towards the next room, which was full of funhouse mirrors, a few splattered with red paint. He didn’t want to accidently see a reflection. “We’ll stop by the station later for the files.”

“We’ll have them ready for you.” Mayfield gave them a little salute and then turned to walk out of the building. “Best of luck to you, boys. I hope you find a clue we missed.”

Sam gave him a thin-lipped grin, and waited for him to leave to pull out the EMF reader. He didn’t even have time to turn it on before Jack made a surprised noise. “Is this sulfur?” He squatted down to press a finger onto the grimy floor.

“I don’t see it,” Dean said, walking over to join him.

“I smell it though,” Jack said, sniffing his fingers and wincing. “Here.” Before Dean could say otherwise, Jack shoved his hand into Dean’s face.

Dean flinched away. “Yep. Sulfur. Definitely. Sam, get the kid some hand sanitizer, and we’ll start hunting down demons.”

Sam was looking up towards the ceiling, forcing himself to breathe slowly. “Good. Let’s get out of here.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small warning about the flashback section: there's a non-explicit hint of non-consensual sexual relations between Loki and Svaðilfari aka Sleipnir's horse dad (yeah I just copy-pasted over his name cause idk how to spell that or where to find the symbols) but there's nothing direct. Honestly, I just wanted to get some headcanons about Raphael and Gabe out there so that's all that is.

_Brentwood~ the investigation_

“What’s up next, Jack?”  Dean had started up the car, but didn’t make a move to pull out of the amusement park parking lot quite yet.  “Your case, remember?”

Jack nodded, head tilted as he thought about it.  “Well, we need the papers they told us to pick up.  And then we can read through those interviews they said they did and see if anybody said any clues.  Because if there’s sulfur, there must be a demon, so now we have to find the demon.”  He leaned forward a bit, eyes flicking between Sam and Dean’s faces.  “Right?”

Sam glanced back at him, offering a smile.  “Sounds about right.  You have any idea how to tell that someone’s a demon?”

“They’re ugly,” he said, nodding.  “Under the vessel.  Their souls are all black and rotted.”  He wrinkled his nose.  “I don’t like them.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a quick look.  “Wait,” Sam said, holding up a hand.  “You can see them?”

Jack blinked, tilting his head slightly.  “Yeah… is that… not normal?”

The exchange of looks between the brothers only served to set Jack on edge.  He leaned forward, eyes widening a fraction.  “Is that normal?” 

“Nope,” Dean said, a bit too cheerfully to actually put the Nephilim at ease. 

Sam elbowed him and turned around.  “That’s probably another side effect of being half archangel,” he said, in an even voice.  “Dean and I, we can’t see that someone’s a demon unless they let their eyes turn black.  In that case, they’re clearly not human.  But if they can control themselves so their eyes don’t change color…”

“Then you can’t see them.”  Jack sat back in the seat with a _flump_.  “I just thought everybody saw that…”

“It’s not a bad thing!”  Sam twisted around more so that he was looking at Jack straight on.  “We were just surprised.  It’s actually incredibly useful.”

Jack’s nose wrinkled, and he looked down at his feet.  “Everything about me is just a useful surprise then, huh?” 

“Jack…” Sam shook his head.  “You’re unique.  You’re a Nephilim.  You’re powerful.  You’ll be able to use these tools-”

“Is it actually a tool though?  Or is it just me?”  He shot a glare at Sam, and then looked away again, biting his lip. 

Sam ran a hand through his hair.  “It’s just different because you’re-”

“Not human?”  Jack pulled his legs up against his chest and looked out the window, refusing to look at Sam.  “An anomaly.  A _unique specimen_.” 

“What?  Jack, you’re not a specimen.  Where’d you even get that idea?”  Sam twisted further, reaching back to touch his knee (the only part he could reach).

He refused to look at Sam, chewing on his lip.

“Jack, c’mon.” 

He mumbled something incomprehensible.

Sam waited, and he let out a breath and repeated what he’d said, only slightly louder.  “I can hear the angels talk about me.  One of them… I didn't catch his name… that’s what he called me.  He was telling a squadron on earth to find me.”

There was a hushed silence in the car, and it was only broken by Dean’s groan.  “The angels are still looking for you?  You shoulda said something!”

“They don’t know where I am,” Jack muttered, sinking lower into himself.  “I didn’t want to worry you guys.”

“Jack, when was this?”  Sam’s voice came out a bit too harsh, and Jack flinched.  Sam took a breath.  “You’re not in trouble,” he added quickly, trying to mitigate the boy’s sudden anxiety.  “We just need to know, so we can protect you.”

“I don’t want you to protect me.”  He dropped his voice to a whisper.  “I don’t want either of you to get hurt on my behalf… This wouldn’t happen if I were human…”

“Jack.”  Sam squeezed the boy’s knee.  “Look at me.”  When there was no response, he repeated the request, and this time Jack glanced up.  Though there were no tears, his eyes were shiny, and Sam’s heart went out to the boy.  “You are unique,” he said, trying to be careful not to feed into whatever negative things he was thinking.  “You’re unique, but you’re not alone.  We’re family.  We look out for each other.  You understand?”

Hesitantly, Jack nodded. 

“We’re not taking care of you because you’re half archangel,” Sam said.  “We’re taking care of you because Castiel was our best friend, and we care about him, and you’re his… his heir, so we care about you just as much.  Right, Dean?”  He glanced over pointedly.  Dean grunted an affirmation, looking out the windshield. 

“You’ve protected us before,” Sam said.  “You’ve already saved both our lives.  Let us protect you in return.  Tell us when you pick up on that stuff, okay?  You’re family.”  He figured the more times he repeated it, the more likely it would stick in Jack’s head.  “You, me, and Dean.  Understand?”

Just as hesitantly, Jack nodded again.  Sam squeezed his knee again and then turned back forward.

Dean looked at him through the mirror.  “So you can see demons, huh?” he said.  “That’s gonna make this case a helluva lot easier.  Let’s go grab those files.”  He pulled out of the parking lot, tires screeching on the pavement as he took the turn too quickly. 

On the edge of his mind, Sam felt a flicker of something.  He wasn’t sure what it was- it wasn’t physical, that was for sure.  An emotion, maybe, though it was so distant that he couldn’t make it out.  But it was warm, and familiar, and small, like a child.  He glanced backwards through the mirror, and when he made eye contact with Jack’s reflection, the sense vanished like it had never been there, and the boy looked away.

Sam took a slow breath, wishing he could reciprocate whatever angelic touch he had just felt, if only so Jack wouldn’t feel so isolated and lonely.

 

_In a random field in the middle of nowhere_

Castiel had been on Earth a long time.  He’d witnessed creation, watched the first fish crawl from the sea, commanded a legion, fought through the army of Hell to bring the Righteous Man back to life, and a million and one other things that floated in the vastness of his memory.  He was one of the younger angels, perhaps, but he was a seraph, mighty in his own right, ancient as the universe.  Although, sometimes he got the sense that the Winchesters forgot that, but he forgave them on the grounds of Dean Winchester. 

What Castiel had never witnessed before was Odin the Allfather’s great and mighty mount, Sleipnir, warhorse of Asgard and fourth child of Loki. 

He had to admit, the white-coated horse god was an impressive sight, landing before them on eight hooves the size of dinner plates, inspecting the three of them with great, golden eyes.  He could see why Odin had chosen to ride this god into battle.  Were the eight-legged stallion bearing down on Castiel, he would have been unnerved, to say the least. 

The stallion snorted, and then shifted, his guise shifting as he swapped to a human form.  His height rivaled Sam Winchester (though, Castiel noted with some triumph, Sam still had an inch on the god), though he was broader of shoulder, and his hair and beard were platinum, coarse as his mane had been.  Despite the color, he looked young, not one line present on his face.  “Castiel,” he said, bowing his head slightly- in respect or simple greeting, Castiel couldn’t tell.  “I have heard about you.”  His tone was neutral, and he raised an eyebrow as he considered the angel.  “I had heard that you were dead.”

“Sleipnir!”  Vali darted forward before Castiel could stop him, and threw his arms around Sleipnir’s waist.  Though the boy was tall for his age (apparently Gabriel’s penchant for smaller vessels was a recessive gene), he still looked tiny next to the grown god.  “We’re alive!”  He grinned up at him.  “How’s Mom?  How’s Thor?  What’s happened since we were gone?  Other than you growing a beard?  Did Freya’s cat have its kittens?  Dad said I could have one, and-”

Sleipnir covered the boy’s mouth with one hand, stifling his words.  “Much has happened in Asgard since your deaths,” Sleipnir said, looking between them.  “It has been thousands of years.  Odin has died, and Thor is unsatisfied and complacent.  Your father is dead, and your mother has moved on with her life, forgetting the pain of her past.”

Vali swallowed, and pushed Sleipnir’s hand off his mouth. 

“Mom forgot us?”  Nari’s voice was quiet, and he narrowed his eyes.  “That’s a lie.  She’d never forget.  I never forgot her.”

Sleipnir considered the pair, head tilted slightly in that angelic way. 

Vali took a step back.  “Why do you look like you’re planning something?”

The god’s lips quirked up in a slight grin.  “Odin is dead,” he said.  “Thor Odinson is unhappy on his father’s throne, and is without his hammer again.  The humans forget the old ways, and reduce us to stereotypes in their movies, rather than beings to be worshipped.”

“He loses his hammer at least every other month.”  Nari hovered by Castiel, looking up at Sleipnir.  “Do you have a point?”

He inclined his head to the boy.  “My point is that I believe it is time for a child of Loki to take the throne of Asgard.”

Vali opened his mouth, then closed it, and then considered it. 

Nari crossed his arms and stepped closer.  “Are you talking about assassinating Thor?  We _like_ Thor.  Odin killed us, not Thor.  Thor and Dad were best friends.  Thor was like… like an uncle.”

Sleipnir was silent. 

“Right?”  Nari’s expression turned from defiance to worry. 

Instead of directly answering, Sleipnir waved a hand dismissively.  “I cannot prove anything about a tragedy that happened so long ago,” he said, and Nari bit his lip.  “But I do know that the eternal argument between Loki and Odin has manipulated too many gods.  They were blood brothers, and rather than bringing peace, they turned Asgard into a blood bath.  I was a peace offering myself- Loki’s mistake, turned into a present for the king.”

The two boys exchanged looks, and Castiel got the sense that it wasn’t the first time they had heard this.

“And now that they are dead, it is time-”

“Stop it.”  Vali danced backwards.  “Stop it, Sleipnir!  Dad’s dead, and you’re so pissy…”  His voice broke, and he covered his face rather than let anybody see him shed a tear.  “Where’s Mom?  You said she was alive.  Stop doing your stupid politics and let us see Mom!”  His voice rose to a shriek at the end, and Castiel could sense a sudden power in the clearing, like a lightning storm coming.  His grace jittered at the strength, and he stepped forward, wrapping an invisible wing around the boy.  He expected pushback, but Vali responded, slumping against his side, fingers twining delicately through Castiel’s feathers. 

“I don’t know who you are,” Castiel said, “or what your agenda is.  I don’t particularly care.  Asgard is not my responsibility or concern.  But Gabriel was my brother-”

Thunder boomed overhead.  “Gabriel, the archangel,” Sleipnir said, pacing back and forth.  “It is easy to forget that Loki Laufeyson is nobody, a lie made up by a deserter of Heaven.”

“Dad didn’t-” 

Sleipnir held up a hand, and Nari was cut off.  His eyebrows creased, grace immediately working against the unnatural silence.  “Your father, my mother- he was a deserter.  Nothing more than a coward.”

“Take that back!”  This time the thunderclap was Nari, breaking through the metaphysical gag.  Castiel could taste metal, the young god making a clear show of power.  Youthful, untrained, but still nearly as strong as Sleipnir.  “Just because you’re _still_ pissed about how you were born doesn’t mean-”

“Stop it!”  Vali dragged himself away from Castiel.  Tears glittered on his cheeks (or maybe it was just drops of rain from the suddenly boiling clouds overhead).  “Stop fighting!  Dad wouldn’t want us to fight, c’mon…”

There was a long silence, except for raindrops gently pattering from the sky.  The taste of metal died from Castiel’s mouth, and he no longer felt wild pagan power permeating the field.

“You are both princelings of Asgard,” Sleipnir finally said.  “It would be beneficial to have you on my side when I become king.  Think on it.”  His form flickered, and then solidified, still human, like he had an afterthought.  “Your mother is in New York.”

And then, with a single beat of powerful wings, Sleipnir was gone, leaving the three standing in a rainy field.  Vali sniffled and scrubbed his hands down his face.  “If… if we’re back, then Dad can too, right?”  He looked over at Castiel.  “We can bring him back too?”

Castiel wrapped his wing around the boy again, sensing the child’s grace reaching out for reassurance.  He answered it, trying to make himself as warm and safe for the fledgling as he could.  But he didn’t have time to find a way to bring Gabriel back right now, if there even was a way.  He needed to get to Jack.  “Let’s get you both to your mother,” was his only response. 

Nari looked up at the sky, dry-eyed.  “We should find Thor’s hammer too,” he said.  “That’s what Dad would do.”

 

_Brentwood~ An abandoned field_

The circus was a flurry of activity as performers prepared and rehearsed.  Jenny wanted to run, or collapse, or literally drop dead, except the strongman’s hand was heavy on her shoulder, and she could see the lizard boy now.  He was on a leash, muzzle strapped tight to his face, but that didn’t stop him from snarling, trying to pull away from the handler, a girl of about ten.  His skin was greenish gray, flaking in places, and his teeth were filed and red-stained, and his eyes were a bright, uncanny yellow.  The girl was a beautiful child, in contrast.  Her skin was a pale blue, and her hair was a deep navy, and a pair of budding horns sprouted from her head above pointed ears. 

Her growl of exertion was audible above the hubbub of a dance team screaming at each other, because apparently Bethany’s loss of an arm upset the balance of the tower, and Bethany should have avoided the lizard boy.  Bethany, currently spurting blood from an armless shoulder, was giving it right back.  Her eyes were black as pitch, and she was shrieking that the dance captain was a total bitch slut who needed to stop whoring around and if nobody was going to help her sew her arm back on, maybe she would switch to a meatsuit that was six hundred pounds and see how _that_ balanced out the tower. 

“New blood?” 

Jenny shrieked as, like magic, a clown appeared in front of her.  A bell jingled from atop his hat, and his garish face paint was more blood and rot than cheerful red and white. 

“This is our new makeup designer,” Loretta said.  “Jenny, meet Chuckles.”

“I thought she was lizard boy food,” Chuckles said, pursing his cracked, rotted lips.  His breath was putrid as he leaned in close to study her, and something _moved_ in his eye, pushing the eyeball over.  Jenny breathed shallowly, trying not to gag or cry.  “She was so fun to catch.”

Something clicked in her head.  “You killed him,” she whispered.  “You killed that guy.”

Chuckles laughed, and the stink of his breath made tears spring to her eyes.  Only the idea of being fed to the lizard boy kept her knees from buckling. 

Loretta moved a dainty hand in front of her ruined face.  “Chuckles, your meat suit is rotting from the inside out.  Could you do something about that?  Swallow an air freshener, maybe?”

“It’s all part of the charm,” Chuckles said.  “You touching up my makeup for me?  Make sure you make me look sexy for the audience.”  He patted Jenny’s cheek, and she flinched.  A little noise escaped her lips, and Chuckles seemed to revel in it, bowing so low that the flower on the top of his hat brushed Jenny’s face.  She flinched, turning her face away.

Loretta pushed open the door of a small trailer, different from the one she’d originally been kept in.  This one was hooked to the back of a shiny new pickup truck.  “And this is where you will stay and work,” she said, gesturing to the inside. 

There was an older boy inside, maybe in his twenties.  “Loretta, hey,” he said, looking up from where he was flipping through a fashion magazine, occasionally dog-earing a page.  “Looking good today.  Did I tell you that color makes you look so slim?”

“This isn’t my original body, sugar.”  Loretta stepped inside, and nodded at Emmett. 

“Loretta?  Emmett?”  The guy looked between them, eyes suddenly going wide as Emmett stepped into the trailer as well. 

They were distracted. 

Jenny’s mouth was dry.  She could hear them arguing, but the words didn’t process.  Now was her chance.  She just had to run, to bolt- there were trees- she could hide- and she would be safe. 

Emmett was trying to grab the former makeup artist, but he was skinny and slippery and kept darting away, trying to get at the door.  Jenny took a shuddery breath, and then took off. 

It was the fastest she’d run in her life, heart pounding against her ribs, feet pounding against the lawn.  The trees were ahead of her, the trees were getting closer, she could escape, she could be free of this nightmare-

“Where are you going?”

He was in front of her before she could stop, and she slammed smack into his slim, warm body, barreling them both over.  She shrieked and tried to scramble away, but there was an iron grip on her ankle, pulling her into the grass.  Despite screaming, despite kicking, despite a wail of terror and defiance, the arms held her, until one hand covered her mouth. She bit down, tasting salty blood, but her captor paid the pain no mind.

“Don’t try to fight it,” said a voice in her ear.  “Try to bolt, and they’ll feed you to the lizard boy.”

She whimpered, looking into a pair of lovely green eyes, belonging to a young man, of perhaps eighteen or nineteen.  He was dark haired and lean like a runner, shirtless.  Tattoos swirled across planes of muscles.  “Nobody escapes Loretta,” he said.  “Don’t try.  It’s not that bad.  I mean, I’m here, right?!”  Carefully, like he was afraid she might bolt again, he let her go.

She stood there, shaking.

“Loretta’s already got your blood, if you’re not caged up,” he said, shaking his head.  “Long as she’s got that, none of us can leave.  You’d get to the trees, a little past maybe, and then just stop.  Like a dog and an electric fence.” 

She bit her lip, shaking her head.  “I don’t…”

“Understand?”  He shook his head.  “Look, you get used to it.  Just don’t get close to the lizard boy and you’ll be fine.  My name’s Carter.”  He stuck out a hand and smiled hopefully.  It lit up his entire face. 

Jenny had a vague, half-formed regret that she was meeting this beautiful stranger when she’d been kidnapped by a freak show, instead of bumping into him in the school cafeteria or the local diner.  And then she bolted. 

He didn’t stop her this time.  She was home free- the trees were right there, and she could hide, and they’d never find her, and-

It was like running into an electric fence.  Shock jerked through her body, ripping her backwards, and she fell on her back, gasping.

“I told you.”  Carter was standing over her a moment later.  He held a hand out to pull her up. 

She whimpered, sitting up.  “I’m stuck here,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her legs.

Somewhere, yards off, the old makeup artist was screaming as he was bodily dragged to the cage trailer.  The lizard boy snarled.  The dance team counted off _FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT_ -

Carter knelt down next to her.  “Look, I had the same reaction when I first got here.  Don’t let them see you cry, okay?  You gotta be strong.”  He grabbed her hands.  “Trust me.  I’ll show you the ropes.  What’s your name?”

She swallowed and licked her lips before she could talk.  “Jenny,” she whispered, looking at him. 

When he smiled, there were little dimples in his cheeks.  “Carter Jensen, son of Hermes,” he said, formally introducing himself.   “You replaced the old makeup guy?  Good, he was a douche.  C’mon.  Why don’t you show me how you’ll do me up for tomorrow night?”  He stood, holding his hands out. 

She hesitated, then linked her fingers with his.  He pulled her to her feet, then started back for the trailer.

 

_Asgard, a very, very, very, very long time ago_

“Thor.  I can’t do this- I’m really not feeling like it.  And I have seven hundred other things to do.  And I’m so nauseous right now.  I’ll probably throw up on this angel and ruin whatever peace treaty-”

“Loki!”  Thor’s voice was an echoing bark as he held up a hand to silence the smaller god.  “I told you, this is not a peace treaty.  This is merely a meeting to ensure good relations in the future.  You’ve run most of Asgard’s negotiations yourself, and you’ve never once said no to a command by Odin.  So why are you complaining now?”

Loki bit her lip and wrapped her cloak tighter around her body, too exhausted to argue, and yet too terrified not to try.  “Would saying I’m seven months pregnant and really not feeling a meeting with an archangel be enough reason?”

Thor sighed, turning towards her.  “Loki, you know how powerful the angels are.  We don’t have a choice.  If we ignore this meeting, then we risk war with a race that has the power to end the world.  You _know_ that.  You warned us about them yourself.”

“Yeah, whatever.  But I’m not lying.  I might actually throw up.  Kiddo’s draining my energy something fierce today.” 

Without another word, Thor reached the pocket of his cloak and pulled out something that was wrapped in a cloth napkin.  He handed it to her.  “Eat quickly,” he said, and turned to continue walking towards the conference room. 

Loki unwrapped a sticky bun, soaked in honey and butter.  She eyeballed him, pretending that she didn’t care that the only reason he’d carried it was to give to her, and took a bite, chewing as she hastened to keep up with him.  “Please,” she tried once more, between bites.  It didn’t do much to settle her stomach, but it did stave off the slight shakiness in her hands.  “Thor.  I can’t-”

“Loki.”  Thor stopped again, setting his hands on her shoulders.  “You know I need you.  The negotiation stuff… all the underhanded politics… that’s your thing, not mine.  You need me to smash a skull, I’m there.  But this?  If I piss off that angel, I doom Asgard.  But you?  You can convince a frost giant to do a jig.”

“That’s… that’s not a saying, Thor.” 

He threw a hand in the air.  “Exactly!  I need you to do the talking.  I won’t ask anything more of you for days.  Just help me, here.” 

She hesitated. 

“Lo, you gave everything for the Walls,” Thor murmured, touching her arm.  “I know everyone jokes, but I saw your face after…”

She looked away.  “Stop.”

“Sorry.”  He flinched.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to- I mean… don’t let the angels torch Asgard after you did so much to protect it.  Just… help me out here.  Please.”

She was silent, fidgeting with the honey that was sticky on her fingers. 

“I’m sorry.”  He reached out, squeezing her shoulder.  “Please.  Come with me.”

She took a deep, shaky breath that did nothing to quell the nausea, then licked the honey off her fingers and rubbed the spit onto Thor’s jacket.  “Fine.  We’ll butter up the angel quick and then I’m going to bed.  Who are we seeing?”

“Raphael,” Thor said, and Loki nodded, turning to stride towards the conference room.  As she walked, she rested one hand lightly on her stomach, making sure her own shields were in place around Sleipnir’s grace.  She herself was unidentifiable as an archangel, but it was shakier with the baby.  His grace responded to her touch, reaching out, and she shushed him aloud. 

Thor didn’t respond to the noise.  At this point, he was used to her talking aloud to the baby. 

She threw open the doors to the conference room.  “Raphael, the Healer of Heaven,” she called, holding her arms out to the archangel sitting across the table, waiting.  “Welcome to Asgard.  Have you been treated alright?  Would you like mead?  Tea?  A-” 

And then she felt her brother’s grace, and she ducked, hands over her mouth as she tried to breathe through her own gagging. 

Thor’s hand was heavy on her back.  “Raphael,” he greeted, in a calmer tone.  “I am Thor Odinson, prince of Asgard, and this is Loki Laufeyson, brother of Odin.”

Raphael stood respectfully, dressed in a dark skinned vessel from the deserts of Midgard, robed in pure white.  With every movement, his invisible wings crackled with electricity, and the static in the room did nothing to make Loki feel better.  To make it worse, Sleipnir could feel it, and he was trying to break her shields, attracted to the grace of another angel.

“And you know who I am,” Raphael said, stepping forward to shake Thor’s hand.  He dropped his hand, not about to touch Loki, who looked like she was going to keel over, though she’d straightened up.

“I’m sorry about my associate,” Thor said, moving his hand back to Loki’s back.  “It has been a rough pregnancy for her.  We’re all praying for our own sakes that the baby comes soon.”  He laughed at the joke.  Raphael didn’t even crack a smile, and Thor’s laughter trailed off.

“Okay, we’re all very aware that you’ve got all of Heaven’s power on your side,” Loki said, dropping the good, excited hostess tone from earlier and giving the archangel a deadpan look.  Static sparked through the room, courtesy of Raphael, and Loki pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to will Sleipnir to calm down.  “Turn down the wings.”

For a moment, nothing happened, and then the taste of electricity vanished, like they were talking to an ordinary Midgardian.  Immediately, Loki was able to take a full breath.  Or at least, closer to a full breath.  She had a small vessel, and Sleipnir insisted on shoving his feet or hooves or whatever he had against her diaphragm. 

“Have a seat,” she said to Raphael, gesturing to the table and choosing a chair for herself.  “And let’s discuss boundaries.  What was the problem?  A couple Valkyries were straying too close to Heaven?”

It was a brief discussion.  Loki was very carefully not allowing herself to think about the fact that she was seeing her brother for the first time in a very, very long time.  If she thought about that, she would scream, and then Sleipnir would get excited, and when he got excited _things_ started happening, things that were frighteningly similar to miracles. 

And Raphael knew how fledglings reacted to the world as well as Gabriel did. 

So, despite the discussion being relatively short, it still felt like an eternity to Loki.

“Yes, that will be amenable to Heaven,” Raphael finished, standing.  “I’ll send a seraph within a couple days to draw up the papers."

Thor clapped his hands together, then reached out to shake the archangel’s hand.  “Excellent!  It was a pleasure and an honor meeting you.  Always my honor to meet an angel.”

Raphael nodded curtly.  “I don’t suppose I could have the pleasure of being shown to the door by Loki?  If, you think you can keep a hold on your breakfast for that long?”

Thor pursed his lips, confused by the request, and glanced at Loki.

Loki drew in a sharp breath at the request, then touched her stomach so they’d think the reaction was to getting randomly kicked again.  “Of course,” she said, an easy smile on her lips.  “It would be my honor.  As Thor said, we love meeting angels.  Especially when they don’t kill us.  Run along, Thor.”

Thor raised an eyebrow, shooting her a questioning look, wordlessly asking if she needed help.  She shot him a little smile in return. 

And then, too quickly, they were alone in the halls, heading towards the entrance of the palace, walking, despite both of them being well aware that Raphael could simply fly away. There was dead silence between them, except for their footsteps echoing through the great hallway.

“Lucifer fell,” Raphael said.  His voice broke the silence.  “Michael pretends he doesn’t care, but it broke him.  And Gabriel is assumed dead.”  He glanced over.  “Is that a fair assumption, Loki Laufeyson?”

 Loki paused, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know how you managed the shields,” Raphael murmured, stopping as well.  “I can’t sense you, and I’m standing next to you.  But your eyes are the same.  The way you talk.”  He hesitated, head tilted.  “Say something.  If I am wrong, I will wipe your memory of this moment, Laufeyson.”

Loki opened her mouth, but for once, she found herself lost for words.  Instead, she reached out with her grace, breaking through her own shields to brush against her brother. 

He shuddered and closed his eyes, reaching back in return.  “I thought you were dead,” he whispered.

She licked her lips.  “It was better that way.”

They were silent for a moment, not physically touching, though their grace was entwined.  “Why did you go?”  Raphael reached out to touch her shoulder.  “And why… here?  In this place?  Is the meathead your lover?”  He nodded downwards, and Loki touched her middle, then shook her head. 

“No.  I mean… sometimes, but not right now.  Sleipnir has no father.  Don’t ask.”  Loki hesitated.  “And if anybody is hunting Nephilim still, my children are not a threat, so-”

“Children, plural?  Gabriel, of course you…”  Raphael sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, and it was the same expression that Michael always had before a thunderous lecture.  “No, it does not matter.  Why did you leave?”

Loki looked away, licked her lips, and tried to think of a good enough excuse that didn’t sound like a complete copout, like she had turned from her duty and deserted her brothers.  “I couldn’t choose a side,” she finally said, sticking to the truth, sad as it was.  “I couldn’t betray you and Michael, and I couldn’t betray Lucifer, and I was trying to hold Heaven’s foreign affairs together and I was already moonlighting as Loki and I hadn’t had a day off in years and I was so tired of the fighting and…”  She could feel tears welling up, and she cursed, looking upwards and trying to blink them away.  She hadn’t cried in years, until Sleipnir had started throwing her emotions out of whack (at least, she could blame the crushing feeling in her chest on her child and not herself right now). 

Raphael was silent. 

“Don’t make me go back.”  Loki took a shivery breath.  “I… I love you, Raph, but please don’t make me go back.  I can’t… I love it here.  I mean, things suck about it, obviously… definitely didn’t mean to get knocked up, and I got my mouth sewn shut for a little bit once, which sucked… but Thor is, my best friend, and there’s this girl, Sigyn, and I think I love her?  But I mean, right now I gotta focus on Sleipnir, but after he’s older, I dunno… if she doesn’t go for that other asshole who’s been courting her… and I’m happy here, I think… not that I wasn’t happy with you guys, and I miss you guys every day, but…”  Her breath was coming in hitched spurts now, and she stopped suddenly, the emotion throwing her stomach into a loop. 

Raphael reached out and squeezed her shoulder.  “Pull yourself together, Loki,” he said, letting his grace brush against her.  “It is unfortunate that Gabriel is dead,” he continued.  “He is missed.  And if it ever turns out that he is alive, he will be welcomed back with open arms, though he may have to spend a few weeks in the dungeon for desertion.”

Loki let out a wet laugh through her hands.  “Shut up.”

“There will probably be torture involved,” Raphael said, and his voice was so serious that Loki herself wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or serious.  “And heaven forbid that it turn out he was fraternizing with false gods.  Or procreating.  Which directly contradicts our Father’s rule, as creation is a deed reserved for God Himself.”

“Good thing he’s dead,” Loki supplied.  There were still tears in her eyes, but she’d gathered control of her breathing, pressing a hand to her stomach to steady herself. 

Raphael nodded sharply.  “Good thing.  And, were he alive, I would recommend he keep out of Michael’s sight, should the occasion ever arise.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Loki threw her arms around Raphael’s neck.  For a moment, the archangel didn’t respond to the physical touch, and then, stiffly, he hugged her back. 

And as soon as Loki let go, he vanished, leaving the air tingling with static that made Loki gag again.  Even when she got the nausea under control, it did nothing about the empty feeling in her chest, like someone had scooped her heart out with a spoon. 

That night, Lady Sif, the lovely wife of Thor, was not happy when she came to her marriage bed to find Loki already nestled into Thor’s side, crying herself to sleep in the thunder god’s arms. 

 

_In the Empty_

Gabriel was pacing back and forth, agitated.  There was something wrong here- something had happened.  He had no idea what, but he could sense _something_.  Sleep weighed on him, and only the pacing kept him alert enough to think, but even that was wearing thin- he could already feel his legs weakening, his knees ready to buckle. 

What had changed?  He couldn’t figure it out.  It was a shift in the atmosphere, a change in pressure, and-

“Brother.”

Gabriel whipped around, finding himself facing a stern, dark haired woman dressed in a suit.  He didn’t recognize the vessel, but- “Raphael.”

Raphael made a little noise of agreement, and touched her forehead.  “Why, pray tell, am I awake?  Please tell me this isn’t your doing, _Loki_.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Gabriel grinned.  “Ayo.  Remember that other time we met up, I was the chica and you were the dude?  Isn’t it crazy how the tables have turned?”

“You were also sobbing like a child,” Raphael said bluntly.  “Which I do not plan on doing right now.  What I plan on doing is sleeping away my rightful eternity of peace.  Which I can’t do, when all I can hear is you pacing and muttering to yourself like a madman.”

Gabriel crossed his arms.  “How’d you even die?  You were the most competent of all of us, last I knew.  Trip while running with angel blade scissors?  Also, thanks for not totally outing me, back in the olden days.  I mean, my girlfriend probably already did that, since she turned out to be a total bitch, but-”

“Sigyn?”  Raphael tilted her head.

Gabriel froze at the name.  “No… Sigyn was a while ago.  Um… that went south.  Really, really south.”  He hesitated.  “I wasn’t in the best headspace when I last saw you.  I was in the middle of a bunch of crap.  Sigyn made it better, for a couple years, but then I ruined everything.”

“I know the story.  No need to recount it.”  Raphael nodded sharply.  “And I didn’t come here for a heart to heart catch up.  I came to ask you to shut up so I can go back to blissful nihility.”

“Oh.”  Gabriel tilted his head.  “No?  Not even a little bit of a catchup?”

Raphael’s eyes narrowed.  “Shut.  Up.”

Gabriel tilted his head, stepping closer.  “Are you… mad at me?”

She took a deep, slow breath, and Gabriel could feel static crackling through the nothing that surrounded them.  “Gabriel.  I was willing to ignore your blatant disregarding of Heaven’s rules, because you can choose your own life, and if you were happier without me- us, then I was not going to insist otherwise.   If you had remained neutral, there would be no issue.  But first, you stop the apocalypse, and now, after I spent so much energy at war with Castiel, you will not even let me sleep-”

“Woah, woah, woah, war with _Cassie_?”  Gabriel tilted his head.  “My Cassie?  What’d I miss?”

Raphael’s look was as deadpan as always.  “A lot.”

“Well shit.”  Gabriel ran his hands through his hair.  “Fuck.  I hate being dead.”

“You know, your name suits you.  All you do is _gab gab gab_ without letting anybody get any _sleep_!”

Raphael and Gabriel both turned to look upon the visage of Castiel that had suddenly appeared.  Except, there was no way that the creature in front of them was Castiel. 

“Well,” said Raphael, glancing over, “you’ve officially screwed us over once again, Loki Laufeyson.”

“If you could stop saying my name like it’s an insult, that’d be great.”

“Shut up!”  And the shriek of the Empty actually did shut them both up, as the siblings looked upon the most ancient cosmic being in the multiverse.  And for the first time in the shared existence of the two archangels, they felt small.


	7. Chapter 7

_A motel in Brentwood_

Papers were spread across the motel room, highlighted painstakingly by Jack and Sam, while Dean skimmed them and tossed them aside.  “These guys interview everybody in the town?” he grumbled, picking up another packet from the pile on the bed next to him. “This person wasn’t even in town when the crime happened.  This other guy doesn’t even live here.”

“It’s a big crime in a small town,” Sam said, reading through another interview.  “They had to cover their bases.”  He and Jack were on the other bed, Jack sprawled across the foot, Sam leaning against the headboard. 

“There’s a difference between covering your bases and wasting resources.”  Dean tossed the next interview into the reject pile.  “I’m gonna go grab some food.  You guys wanna come?”

Sam gestured meaningfully at the pile of papers.  Dean sighed, rolling his eyes.  “Fine.  I’ll order _online_.”  There was a pause while he searched up the menu for the local diner.  “You want chicken on your salad, dude?”  He glanced over at Sam. 

“Hmm?  Yeah, thanks.  Grilled, if that’s an option.”

“You’re gonna outlive me by twenty years if we don’t get killed off before then,” Dean said, ordering himself a burger.  “What do you want, Jack?”

Jack hesitated, then pushed himself up and stepped across the gap between the beds to kneel next to Dean, holding out his hand to see the menu.  Dean obliged, and Jack scrolled through, head tilted, then looked up, half grinning.  “Brownie sundae?”

Dean glanced at Sam.  “I dunno.  Is that a healthy dinner for a growing archangel?”

“Make him get a vegetable too,” Sam said, rubbing his eyes when they started to blur from peering at the small text of the interview transcripts. 

Dean jerked a thumb towards Sam, making sure Jack knew who was to blame for being forced to eat a natural plant, and added on a side salad as well.  Jack wrinkled his nose, but didn’t argue with it, moving back over to Sam’s bed to resume helping to comb through the documents.   

“I’ll go pick it up in a few minutes,” Sam said, stretching.  “I’m gonna fall asleep if I don’t move.”

“Oh, you can go get up and get the food, but I have to stay here and read?”  Dean shot a look towards his brother.

“If you go, you’ll get talking to the locals, and you’ll take seven hours, and end up crawling back at three in the morning.”  Sam’s expression was deadpan as he flipped the page on his packet.  “If I go, I’ll be in and out.”

“Talking to locals solves half our cases,” Dean said, rolling his eyes.  “You’re just jealous that the pretty waitresses don’t want to divulge their secrets to you.”

“Maybe I like secrets from people I’ve known longer than twenty minutes,” Sam grumbled back, and then bit his lip.  As soon as he said it, it was Gabriel’s face he thought of, and he had to shake the image out of his head.  He needed to talk to the archangel.  Not about that dream he’d had, because that was something that was better left forgotten, but because he still needed those actual literal secrets about Hela. 

“I can go,” Jack said, sitting up.

“What?”  Both brothers looked over at him. 

“It’s the diner down the road, right?”  Jack tilted his head.  “I can walk.  I don’t mind.  Then you don’t need to argue with each other to see who does it.”

“Oh, right?  What else do we keep a kid around for?”  Dean made a gesture, then grabbed his wallet from next to his bed, pulling out a few twenties.  “I expect change.”

Jack nodded, gravely pocketing the money like he’d been handed Dean’s very soul to take care of.  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, and took a hotel key, before heading outside. 

Truth be told, he felt as drowsy as Sam did, staring at the very repetitive interview packets.  Each time he thought one sounded suspicious, it would turn out that their alibi checked out, and there were so many interviews and so many alibis to check that it seemed an endless task.  And he didn’t want to take a nap.  Sam needed a nap, because the Winchesters did _not_ get enough sleep (he had looked up that an adult human male needed at least six hours, preferably more, and brothers averaged four hours on a case, so if Sam took a nap, that was probably good for him).  But Jack got plenty of sleep, and he wanted to work right now. 

And, sure enough, the movement and fresh air was already waking him up.  He stopped to pet a dog on his way, a bouncy, drooly mutt being walked by a lady talking on her cell phone, and that lifted his spirits immensely.  And the sun was still up, though drifting lower in the sky, and the air smelled of somebody’s barbeque, and there was a group of kids playing kickball in a field nearby, despite the case of the two missing people still being open.

It was a lovely evening. 

And then he realized he was being followed. 

It started as a tingle in the recesses of his conscious, the hairs rising on the back of his neck.   He wasn’t alone on the street, or rather, he had somebody’s attention, but a moment ago there had been an anonymity.  He was new in town, just passing through, a drifter like Sam and Dean, and nobody paid him any mind, but now… now somebody was paying him mind.

He didn’t know how he knew.  It was just a feeling. 

He bit his lip and continued walking, trying to decide what to do.  The first thing he had to do was see if he was in danger- if it was just a dog or a cat, there was no harm in it following him.  And then, he could choose to run, or call Sam and Dean, or fight.

The idea of fighting made him sick.  He didn’t want to kill an angel, if it was one.  They were his people, after all, even if he could never say that aloud.  In his head, he decided his first course of action would be to run- fly, if he could muster it, but he couldn’t always control it.  And then his second step would be to call the Winchesters and warn them that there was something there.

And then something brushed his grace. 

Jack froze. 

It was an angel. 

But not.  There was something off about it.  Something different, but familiar- he whirled around, already on the defensive. 

“Woah there, kid.”  It was a man leaning against the wall behind him.  Tall and dark was the best way to describe him- he wore a dark Carhartt jacket over a plaid shirt, his hair was a messy mop of black, and he looked to have gone a few days without shaving.  Sunglasses were perched atop his head.  “Just trying to get ahold of you without Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum getting in the way.  How’ve you been, since we last met?”

“Fenrir,” Jack said, as it clicked.  His grace was the same, but the shapeshifting had tripped Jack up for a moment.  He relaxed, though didn’t completely let his guard down. 

“Jack,” he said, and stepped closer to the boy, slow and steady, as to not spook him.  “Where you headed?  Need a ride?” 

Jack shook his head.  “I was picking up food from the diner.  We just ordered it.”

Fenrir nodded.  “Shall I join you then?”

Jack hesitated, then nodded.  “Have you been following us?”

Fenrir let out a snort at that.  “Following you?  No.  But I figured I should check in on you.  Angels are getting antsy- I assume you heard the memo?”

His eyebrows furrowed, and he nodded, taking a few steps in the direction of the diner.  Fenrir fell into step easily, and Jack could sense the older god’s grace, ancient and wild.  It took his breath away for a moment, and he didn’t realize he was reaching out until he felt it respond, brushing him back.  When he looked up, Fenrir was smirking slightly, not doing anything to push Jack away.

Jack blushed, forgetting his worry about the angels, and looked away.  To his surprise, he felt a nudge, though Fenrir’s hands were resting in the pockets of his coats.  It was a nudge of emotion, both amused and curious, though there was a current of anger and temper underneath, a core that burned cold deep within the god.  There was warmth there too though, balancing the cold, and a deep grief that Jack had come to associate with anyone who knew death. 

Jack caught his breath and pulled away again, shaking his head. 

“Anyways,” Fenrir said, like the moment hadn’t happened, “the angels are getting antsy.  They got wind of you, and are probably looking to either kill you, or harness your power.  Neither is a good idea.  Ever since the archangels went crazy and tried to end the world, Heaven hasn’t exactly been on everybody’s good guy list.”

The diner was just down the street.  Jack bit his lip, looking down at his feet as he walked.  “If they come after me,” he said slowly, “they’ll hurt Sam and Dean.”

“Pretty sure Sam and Dean are immortal,” the wolf god said flippantly, waving a hand dismissively at Jack’s worry.  “No, what the real issue is, is that people like us, half angel?  We’re illegal.  Heaven spent ages trying to kill Nephilim.”  He paused at the road, smacking the button for the crosswalk. 

Jack waited beside him, worried as he had ever been, stomach in knots.  “So why would they leave me alive now?”

“Resources?”  Fenrir glanced both ways, then stepped into the road, though the sign still said not to cross.  “I don’t pretend to know the mind of an angel.  Point is, you’re one of us, little cousin.”  As they stepped over the next curb, he squeezed Jack’s shoulder, letting his grace brush Jack’s once again. 

Jack reached for it, instinctively.  As ancient and terrifying the other god was, he was the closest thing Jack had ever found to himself, and he basked in the feel of another angel’s grace, one who wasn’t trying to murder him.  Fenrir did nothing to dissuade him, the only shields up being the shields around his thoughts themselves.  The energy and emotion that made up the rest of his being was fair game, and Jack twined his own grace through, energy sparking as he and the older angel made contact. 

“I don’t want to see Heaven take you,” Fenrir said, the corners of his lips twitching up at the boy’s eagerness.  “So if you’re ever in a bind, just shoot me a prayer, little cousin.”

They came to the front entrance of the diner, but Jack hesitated before going inside.  “Can you teach me?”  He looked up at Fenrir, pleading.  “How to use my grace?  Gabriel said to look for Hela, but we don’t know how to find her, and you’re already here…”

Fenrir raised an eyebrow, at the request.  “That’s a first,” he said, and chuckled.  “Most people aren’t looking to be the protégé of the big bad wolf.”

But Jack’s eyes were still big and pouty.  Fenrir sighed.  “I am not dealing with your guardians,” he said, point blank.  “My father died for Sam and Dean.  I understand why-” he said that through his teeth- “but I don’t want to see them or deal with them, because I might kill them.  If you wish to abandon them completely and join me permanently, I will not say no.  But that’s not a decision I would ask a child to make.”

Jack blinked, and opened his mouth.  Fenrir sighed.  “Kid, you don’t want me as a teacher, even if I didn’t hate Sam Winchester’s existence.  Trust me, you’re better off with Hela.  I’ll get you a summoning spell so you can talk to her, how’s that?  It’ll take me some time to get the stuff together for it, so keep an eye out for me.”

Jack nodded, trying to swallow his disappointment. 

“Oh, don’t give me that look.”  Fenrir reached out to ruffle Jack’s hair.  “I’m terrible with kids.  All we’ll do is get frustrated with each other and then try to kill each other.  What I can do is protect you- and the Winchesters, _I suppose_ , if any angels come knocking.” 

He shook his head to straighten his hair again.  “Thanks,” he said after a moment, and then added, “Cousin.”

Fenrir grinned at that, toothy and sharp.  “I’ll get you that spell.  Hela’s all patient and kind and crap.  We’ll let her lay down your base training, and I’ll take over when you get old and resentful.  Give me… mmm, a week at most to get that spell together.  Pray if the angels show up.”

Jack nodded, and then Fenrir was gone, leaving only the lingering scent of ozone and forests.  Jack closed his eyes and took a breath, feeling the sudden absence like a punch to the gut.  

 

_An abandoned field outside of Brentwood_

Jenny licked her lips as she went through the drawers of makeup, trying to bring some moisture back to her mouth.  It was hard to breathe- she thought if she drew in a full breath, she would throw up.  “I don’t understand,” she tried to say, but her voice came out in a dry squeak.  She swallowed, and tried again.

Carter was spinning slowly on the makeup stool.  He looked up when she spoke.  “What don’t you understand?”

She picked up a makeup brush, feeling the familiar weight in her hands.  It did nothing to calm her nerves.  “What is this place?  What’s happening?  She has us… what, chained up?  By our blood?  And you said you’re a son of Hermes- like, a demigod?  I read Percy Jackson… I mean… and the demon lady… is that her actual face?  It’s like…” Her breath hitched.  “It’s like a bad horror movie that you can’t escape from…”

“Pretty much.”  Carter spun around on the stool once more.  “I don’t know Loretta’s story.  Nobody does.  I joined up when I was eleven.  Seemed like a better idea than spending my whole life running from monsters.”

Jenny opened her mouth, then closed it. 

“Can we skip through the part where you have your whole worldview shaken?”  Carter rested his chin on his hand.  “Yeah.  Demons are real, gods are real, I’m real.  Witches, wizards… probably elves, but I haven’t met one.  Hey, your hands are shaking too much to do a good job on my makeup.  Let’s take the tour.”

“The clown?” she asked in a small voice.  “He killed someone…”

“He’s killed a lot of someones.”  Carter looked away, biting his lip.  “Look, I didn’t say this place was perfect.  But it was better to join up with the monsters than have my bones become toothpicks for one.  And you’re lucky.  You got a skill.  So they’ll keep you alive.”

“Well…”  She had a thousand questions, so many that they all just morphed into one question mark in her head.  It was a question mark hat was closely followed by explanation point, because she was still in danger, and this was not good, and she didn’t have her phone so she couldn’t call the police or her parents, who probably thought she was dead and were out of her mind, and she had missed school now so she was going to fail and everybody was going to know she was the girl who was kidnapped so she would just be the victim for the rest of her life if she even made it out of this place alive-

“Hey, hey.”  Carter hopped off the stool and pressed his hand to her back.  “Take a deep breath.  It’s not that bad.  You’re alive, right? C’mon, let’s see how good a makeup artist you are.”  He reached behind her to pluck a brush from on the counter.  “Can you do a skull?”

She hesitated.  “What?”

“Can you paint my face like a skull?”  He pushed the brush into her hands and put his hands on her shoulder.  “I know it’s scary, but this is where you are now.  You just need to dive right in.”

Jenny shook her head.  “I want to go home,” she whispered.

Carter glanced at the door, and then leaned forward.  “Hey, listen to me.  I’m testing you right now.  If you can’t actually be a makeup artist, then they’ll toss you to the lizard boy and put the old guy right back here.  So you gotta paint me like one of your French girls right now, because your life depends on it.”

Jenny’s breath came in a little shudder. 

“You hear me?”  Carter’s voice was quiet and intense.  “They.  Will.  Kill.  You.  I don’t want to see you die.  But I can’t save you.  So you’re gonna have to buck up and show us your skills.”

“I can’t-”

“You can.  You have to.”  Carter set his hands on her shoulder.  “Listen.  There are monsters in this world.  The only difference between these monsters and regular human monsters are that these ones have teeth.  So to survive, you gotta become one of them.”

“That’s a terrible pep talk,” she whispered.  “I just want to go home…”

“You _can’t_ go home.”  Carter leaned back suddenly, looking upwards.  “Look.  I know you’re freaked out.  But if you want to make it out of this alive, you’re going to have to prove yourself.  You’re only alive right now because of a fluke.  _You_ were supposed to be lizard boy food, and instead you got a job.  So be happy!  You’re worth something!”

She looked down at the brush in her hands.  “But… I can’t make someone die for me.  That’s _sick_.  That’s _fucked_.”

Carter stared at her.  “Suit yourself,” he said.  “It was nice knowing you for this whole five minutes.”  He got up and walked over to the door of the trailer, hesitating.  “Stay here, if you’re so scared.  I’ll be back in an hour.  If you haven’t changed your mind by then, then you can kiss your pretty ass goodbye tomorrow night.”

Jenny flinched, expecting him to slam the door, but he shut it gently behind him, leaving her alone. 

She sat down heavily on the stool, burying her face in her hands.  She had been kidnapped.  She had been kidnapped by a bunch of crazy, insane, fucked up killers who were running some kind of freak show, and now she was stuck here because there was some kind of electric fence (she didn’t believe the blood binding thing for one second) and there was no way for her to get out.  She didn’t have her phone, didn’t have a chance against anybody in a fight. 

All she had were the clothes on her back, dirty and smelling of corpse, and the fact that she knew how to do makeup.  If she rolled over and lent her talents to these freaks, another person would die on her behalf.  If she chose to stand up and try to be a good person, she would die. 

She pulled her feet up onto the stool and buried her face in her knees, wishing that she could wake up from this nightmare.

 

_Somewhere in the Finger Lakes region of New York_

At first glance, it was an ordinary Bed and Breakfast, a lovely little inn between a lake and a vineyard, with several rooms, reasonable prices, and several tours of the local wineries offered.  There were coupons for local restaurants, and discounts for regular customers, free Wi-Fi, and glowing reviews online. 

On the outside, it was a large house, painted a pale forget-me-not blue with a wraparound porch and as many flowers that could be fit in the yard.  On the inside, it was homey, with homemade rugs on hardwood floors and old black and white pictures of different people on the walls.  The furniture was all hand-carved wood, and the rooms were each decorated with the same cottage feel, with wood bedframes and handcrafted quilts. 

Dogs were allowed (as long as they had the vet papers declaring their vaccinations), and large families were encouraged.  There was a sort of daycare service, in fact, if parents wished to go on a wine tour for the day and leave their kids behind to be watched.  A slightly inflated rate meant that the children would be chaperoned on trips to the park and the arcade just down the block, along with having access to the game room in the basement. 

There were several large cats seen lounging on the porch or stalking through the flowerbed at any given time, and, except in the coldest months of the winter, the inn was generally fully booked. 

The mistress of the house was an enigma, to any ordinary person to come by.  She called herself Vicky Sigmund, and sure enough, all her papers were in order by that name, but she didn’t hide her true identity from anybody who asked point blank, or called her out on the fake name.  “Sigyn Iwaldidottir,” she’d reply with a laugh when asked who she really was, and then continue answering phones or balancing the books or helping guests or making sure that fresh, complementary coffee was available to everybody.  If she had a bit of extra time, she’d say, “I changed it because everybody slaughters Iwaldidottir.”

On this day, out in the back yard, there was no cheery smile.  In fact, the normally lighthearted goddess looked rather annoyed, arms crossed as she considered the paperwork being handed to her.  “What do you mean our shipment was just lost?”

“I mean just that,” the delivery man said, shrugging.  “It was on the truck when I left, and when I got here, it was gone.”

Sigyn sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.  Her gardening gloves left a smudge of dirt on her face.  “Klein.  I have a party of fifteen coming in three days, and they are all vegan.  Do you know how hard vegans are to serve?”

“I mean, just take out the meat-”

“The only vegan food we have here right now is _lettuce_.”  She waved a hand.  “Because everybody is vegan now, so we _ordered_ food.  Now we need _extra_ because we have a party of fifteen coming.  So your job was to bring me the extra.  Comprende?”  

“Yeah, I comprende, but I’m telling you, Vicky, I don’t know where it went.  Maybe one of the boys dropped it at the wrong place.”  Klein was a burly man, a truck driver from the beard to the flannel to the beer belly, but he had no doubt the woman in front of him could break him in half.  Despite being short as a pixie, she was all muscles and curves, with hands calloused by hard work.  And apparently, despite all her flowers, there were no vegetables around the place. 

She gave him a deadpan look, and with her bright green eyes and plaited blonde hair, Klein had no doubt that in another lifetime, this woman was something fierce, a Viking maybe.  “I expect my order here tomorrow, six am.  Then we can pretend this whole accidental disappearance didn’t happen.”

Klein wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to make that happen, but there was a shovel shoved in the soil next to her, and he had a sudden vision of the woman slamming it into his skull, so he decided that was a challenge that he could deal with himself.  “No problem,” he said, and turned, ready to get out of the reach of her shovel. 

She watched him go.  “Fucking idiot,” she grumbled under her breath, and went back to digging holes in the ground for the new flowers.  Soil was not nearly as satisfying to dig into as a skull, but it settled her craving for physical work. 

“Hey, Sigyn!”  The head chef leaned out the back window.  Her name was Sierra Kinney, one of Thor’s younger offspring (the god had far too much unprotected sex, in Sigyn’s opinion, although she was quite happy to find Sierra, who had a knack for leadership and food).  “You get that order in yet?”

She stabbed the shovel into the soil, and the metal cracked against a rock, sending her hands reverberating.  “No, Sierra,” she called back, smiling sweetly.  “Apparently, it simply disappeared off the truck!”

“What?  Bullshit.”  Sierra leaned in the window, her wild curls pulled back from her face by a cheery red headband.  “I bet he sold it to the highest bidder.  I hear vegan is in now.”

“My dad makes a good mutton, so I wouldn’t know.” Sigyn called back to her.  “It’ll be here in the morning, or we’re serving Klein’s head instead.”

“Ooh, with a maple glaze!”  Sierra pretended to swoon.  “I can already smell it.  You want coffee?  I’m putting on another pot.”

“Fuck yeah I want coffee,” Sigyn called back.  “I’ll be right in after I finish planting these.  Even though they’re completely out of season.  Got them on sale.”

“You and your plants.”

“Maybe I should start shooting up marijuana to de-stress instead.”

Sierra disappeared inside, and then reappeared a moment later.  “Hey, Sigyn, apparently there’s someone asking for you.”

She rolled her eyes and turned around, swinging the shovel up over her shoulder.  “I have a single half hour for lunch,” she said.  “If I want to spend it playing in the dirt and not talking to customers, I think I’m entitled to.”

Sierra leaned against the windowsill.  “Um, yeah, you’re an immortal goddess, so you can actually do whatever you want.  But that doesn’t change that someone’s looking for you.  Mark says the guy is adamant.”

There was a sound of someone talking inside, and Sierra glanced back, further inside.  “Oh, he says it’s an angel.”

“An angel?”  Sigyn groaned and stabbed the shovel into the ground.  “If this is about Loki, _again_ , it has been eight years since he died, and I think we can lay the matter to rest.  Yes, I knew my husband was an angel.  No, I didn’t realize he was an archangel.  No, I haven’t been with him since he escaped the chains.  Yes, I was sad when he died.  We weren’t together, but we were friends.” 

Sierra relayed the news back to Mark, who relayed the news to the visitor.  There was a pause as the response was telephoned back outside.  But Sierra hesitated, like she was considering the words rather than simply giving them to Sigyn.

“Spit it out,” Sigyn called, pressing her shovel deeper into the soil so it wouldn’t fall over.  She walked over to the back door, stepping into the kitchen.  “What does the angel want?”

Sierra and Mark were both in the kitchen.  Mark was younger, sixteen (though Sigyn suspected his real age was closer to fourteen).  The psychic boy had been tossed out on the streets when his visions started to reflect the real world, and Sigyn had been working with him on controlling his magic.  “Maybe you should go talk to him,” he said hesitantly.

Sigyn sighed and peeled off her gardening gloves, setting them on the edge of the sink.  “Wait, there’s…” Sierra licked her finger and wiped the dirt off Sigyn’s nose, like she would one of her own children.  “Okay.  Go ahead.”

Sigyn rolled her eyes.  “I expect that coffee,” she said in a stern, half joking tone, adjusted the collar of her blouse, and walked out into the main room, where three people were sitting down. 

She froze, mouth half open as familiar grace washed over her.

“Hello, Lady Sigyn,” the angel said, standing when she entered the room.  His wings were folded neatly at his back, shimmery dark and banded.  “I am Castiel.  Gabriel was my brother.  Or Loki, I suppose you all knew him as.  I was recently dead, but I found-”

He was interrupted as Vali shoved by him to throw his hands around Sigyn.  She froze, breath catching in her throat.  Her mouth was open, but she couldn’t speak. 

“Mom?”  Nari looked up at her, head tilted.  “Sleipnir said you forgot us.”

Her breath hitched, and she reached out with shaking fingers to touch Vali’s wings, a darker, banded gold, where his father’s had been more solid.  He looked at her, tears in his eyes, though he was grinning.  Another inch and he’d be taller than her.  The thought was almost enough to make her burst into tears.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Castiel said, touching her shoulder, but she fell to her knees before he could draw up a chair, reaching out to pull Nari closer as well.

This was a lie.  This had to be fake.  But they were good fakes- they were her boys, right down to freckles and the individual patterns of their wings, invisible to everyone else.  Vali, with his dark bands, and Nari, such a pale gold they could be mistaken for white, both still fluffed with baby feathers.  It was them.  It was their grace, the grace she had known since the moment the twins had been conceived, the grace she could never forget even if she spent a thousand more lifetimes without them.

“Mom?” one of them asked, and then she did burst into tears, clutching them close to her body and running her hands over them, over arms and faces and wings, trying to remember all the details that had faded in the endless time since they had been gone.

 

_In the Empty_

“My vote is for endless sleep,” Raphael said, before there could be a fight. 

“And endless sleep you shall get, little archangel,” the Empty said, stepping over to pat her shoulder.  “As long as your dear baby brother lays down like a good little bird for his nap.”

“Um,” said Gabriel.  “No.  Definitely not.  If I could stay awake, that’d be great, thanks.”

The Empty closed its eyes, taking a deep breath.  “Gabriel, the Messenger of God.  We are all aware that on a fundamental level, you were created to talk.  To jabber on about all the petty little news in your world and make sure everybody knows the latest gossip.  But, but-but-but, there’s no place for gossip here.  You’re dead.  Here, everybody sleeps.  Quietly.  And _you_ , Gabriel, are not quiet.”

Gabriel pursed his lips, considering that.  “Then, and hear me out, weird guy who looks like Castiel’s meatsuit, maybe you should boot me out of here.  Obviously, this place and me don’t mesh, so I’ll just take my big bro here and skedaddle.”  He jerked a thumb in Raphael’s direction. 

She looked affronted.  “Do you think I _want_ to go back?  This is the most peace I’ve gotten since I was created!”

Gabriel paused, and glanced over at her.  “You know you can have that on Earth too, right?  Nobody’s forcing you to go back to Heaven.”

The Empty slid between them.  “Gabriel, leave your brother alone.  Raphael’s fate is not yours to decide.  The only fate in your hands is your own, and the only thing in your future is sleep.  Think about it, Gabriel.  An end to your miserable, painful, grief stricken existence.  Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

Gabriel tilted his head.  “Okay, first, my brother, my rules.  Sorry, Raph, but you’re coming back with me.  Second off, my existence is not miserable and painful and grief stricken.  I have a great life!  Parties every weekend, hot humans, hot gods, hot monsters, super powers, orgies-”

“Please stop,” Raphael said from behind the Empty, pinching the bridge of her nose and wishing that she could deny knowing Gabriel. 

“Point is,” Gabriel continued, “my life’s great.  You can suck it.”

“Was it great when Kali betrayed you?”

Gabriel crinkled his nose.  “Of course, a gazillion year old virgin would go attacking my relationships.  Jealous much?”

Raphael buried her face in her hands. 

“What about your brother then?” The Empty asked, taking a step closer.  The visage of Castiel melted into darkness, revealing Gabriel’s own face, his own easy voice.  “Was it great when your brother skewered you on your own blade?”

“That’s probably going a little far,” Raphael said, but her voice was distant and far away now, barely audible, like Gabriel and the Empty were in their own bubble, alone in the vast sea of darkness. 

Gabriel stepped back, but made a face.  “Fun trick.  What’re you gonna do, play me a slideshow of my worst moments?”  He waved his hands across the sky like he was imagining a headline.  “Top ten epic fails of Loki’s life?  Well come at me, fucker.  There’s nothing you can say that I don’t already know.”

The Empty stepped forward, an eyebrow quirked up.  “Really, Gabriel?  Then why do you hesitate?  Could it be that you know what I’m going to say?”

Gabriel threw his hands out to the side.  “That my brother hates me?  That Lucifer wished me dead?  Well, hell-oooo, here we are.  Dead.  And I’m fine, so can we skip to the part where I get booted back to life and you go back to your endless existence wishing that a girl would screw a scummy piece of cosmic ass like you?”

“Defensive, are we?”  It was Gabriel’s smirk on the face of the Empty, the last smirk sinners saw before they died by the irony of their own crimes.  “Perhaps he wouldn’t have hated you so if you hadn’t abandoned him in his moment of weakness?”

“You don’t know-”

“I have seen your dreams, Gabriel.”  The Empty smiled, running his fingers back through his hair.  “You dream loudly.  Everybody here knows your secrets.  How your brother was forced to bear the Mark of Cain when the Darkness was defeated, and you… what did you do again?”

Gabriel’s grin was rapidly falling into a glare.  “I left.  Yeah, I know.”

“The Mark was driving Lucifer mad, after all.”  The Empty smiled, slowly circling Gabriel, so the archangel was forced to turn in circles to keep his eyes on the being.  Raphael was nowhere to be seen.  “He was insane, spewing profanity against God- oh, but he wasn’t.  All he did was simply question God’s divine authority, and you just left?”

Gabriel shrugged.  “Yeah, I’m a scumbag.  I never said I wasn’t.”

“Oh, but you did.”  The Empty darted forward to tap a finger against Gabriel’s chest.  “Right here.  In your heart of hearts, you tell yourself that nothing was your fault.  That you were simply a victim.  Is that true?”

Gabriel swiped his hand away.  “What does this have to do with anything?”

The Empty leaned forward, like he was about to divulge the greatest secret of the cosmos.  “Everything,” he whispered, “is your fault.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.  “Oh, is it, huh?  What are you doing?  Trying to shame me into submission?”

“No, no shame.”  The Empty smiled, Gabriel’s easy smile reflected back at him.  “Merely truths.  You could have taken the Mark of Cain upon yourself, you know.  Lucifer was God’s favorite, and Michael’s, and Raphael’s.  You were just an afterthought, a messenger boy, a carrier pigeon.  You were created to run errands.  The Mark should have gone onto your arm.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to make a rebuke, but didn’t have a chance to think of one before the Empty continued. 

“And we both know you’re the weakest of the archangels,” It continued.  “Had you turned to the dark, you would have been put down easily, with no eternal Cage required.  It would have been simple, and Lucifer would not have had to suffer the Mark, had you volunteered.  But, oh, how loathsome is that little gnat called Fear.  It festers, doesn’t it?  Right inside your pretty little skull.”  He reached out to tap Gabriel’s forehead.  “You were terrified of the thought of losing yourself to the Mark, so you let Lucifer, the glorious Light Bearer, bear it instead.  You sacrificed your brother so that you could keep your mind.  By not volunteering, by not stepping forward, you damned the universe, Gabriel.”

This time, Gabriel was silent.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”  The Empty smiled gently.  “Knowing that your failure, your cowardice, spelled the end of the world you claim to love so much.  And then… you… you just left.”  He shrugged.  “Your brother was struggling with the Mark, the ugliest mar on the world, and you abandoned him because you didn’t want to choose a side if he and Michael fought?”  It let out a laugh at that.  “And oh, the excuses you make.  You didn’t want to fight, you had a child with someone on Earth, the arguments were too loud, being Messenger was too boring… you’ve made a thousand and one excuses, Gabriel, but none of them, not a one, reflects the truth.”

Gabriel held the silence, glaring. 

“Yes, little carrier pigeon.  You were afraid.”  The Empty smiled.  “You were afraid of taking responsibility, and you were afraid of witnessing the consequences of your pathetic failure.  You are a coward, Gabriel.  Even now, you are a child, quivering in the ugly face of the truth.”

“Stop it.”  Gabriel’s voice was a whisper as he stepped back from the form of the Empty.  “That’s not-”

“Isn’t it?”  The Empty tilted Its head.  “Then pray tell me the truth, Gabriel.  Tell me how you tried your hardest to save your brother from eternal torture.  Tell me how you fought tooth and nail to remove him from the Cage.  Tell me how you screamed at the injustice until your throat was raw, and tell me how you tore at the bars until your fingernails were bloody.”

“What place is there in that world for a coward, Gabriel?”  The Empty stepped forward, cupping Gabriel’s cheek in Its hand.  “Your children, the ones that survived, are ashamed of you.  Their father is a deserter, a traitor, an archangel who abandoned his brother in the moment of greatest need.  You lied to the entire world rather than admit to your childish fear.  You fabricated an entire identity so nobody would know how frightened you were.”

Gabriel’s breath caught in his throat.  “Stop it,” he whispered.

“I can’t stop the truth.”  The Empty’s eyes were sad and soulful, the depths of his disappointment bottomless.  “But you can, Gabriel.  Lay down.”  He moved a hand to Gabriel’s shoulder, pushing him down so they were both kneeling.  “Close your eyes.  Slip away, into the peace of the Empty.  There is no more fear here.  There is only-”

A light like a lightning bolt lit the darkness, and there was a crack of thunder, a battlecry, and the Empty shouted, curling away from the sudden brilliance.  Its form melted again, until it was a mass of shadows, writhing and screaming in the cosmic hurricane. 

_Gabriel.  We are leaving._

Gabriel’s breath caught in his throat as he looked upon Raphael’s true form, the eyes of his vessel watering with the radiance.  “Brother-”

_I cannot stop It forever.  Come now.  Need I remind you that you were the one wishing for life?  Come._

Gabriel glanced back towards the writhing shadows, already starting to take on form again, and then stood and stepped towards the light, swallowing against the sick, empty emotion that hung in his chest like somebody had scooped out his heart.

 

Sigyn, Vali, and Nari by the amazing @scrollingkingfisher 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh goodness oh no my throat hurts please no please just be allergies I have finals next week I can't be getting sick NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
> 
> ALso, there is like no literature that pops up about Sigyn anywhere? The best I can get is that she's a pre-germanic goddess who sorta fell out of popularity except as Loki's boring wife, but like Loki would not have married a pushover I don't think. So I stole her stats from the Marvel Universe, but idk anything about comics so I just looked up her page so no worries if you know less than me, I just needed her parents. Also, i went this whole time thinking Theoric was an actual mythological person and I was excited to use him but then turns out he's only marvel? What the actual heck marvel? I don't read the comics guys I don't know this stuff. can i still use a god who isn't actually a god just so sigyn has someone to cuddle who isn't loki? I might tbh... I gotta read neil gaiman's norse mythology book also, I love him so much he is my god, like just next to Terry Pratchett. Okay, this was a long letter, good night to whomever made it to the end


	8. Chapter 8

_Heaven_

Zadkiel had not lived a particularly unique life as an angel.  He was rather low on the totem pole, in fact- he had been trained as a guardian angel, to follow a person around on Earth and make sure that no demons destroyed their lives. 

Of course, that had been fine and dandy when the human population was roughly a hundred thousand and Heaven could afford to station one angel per human.  That was back in the old days, when the humans were building the Tower of Babel, before they had been scattered into a thousand languages and sects.  Gabriel had been alive then, often seen chatting with the high priests (or chatting up, depending on the day and the mood of the oddly amorous archangel).  Gabriel, in fact, had been having a mild fling with the girl Zadkiel had been assigned to protect, so Zadkiel knew firsthand the archangel’s tastes. 

Of course, if Gabriel had been screwing one person, he had been screwing ten, and one day Zadkiel had checked in to find his charge being torn apart by a jealous Northern goddess while Gabriel was in Heaven, no doubt smoothing over another thunderous argument between Michael and Lucifer.  The girl being killed in a supernatural fashion meant that Zadkiel had failed in his duties as a guardian angel, and Gabriel had completely denied having any part of it, because that would have meant admitting that he was at fault. 

Zadkiel didn’t much like archangels. 

He had been demoted to a paper pusher in Heaven, and when Gabriel was declared dead, he had attended the funeral, like a good little follower, but inwardly he smiled at karma.  He had skipped the wake, going back to organizing paperwork on the humans, handing lists of sins and virtue off to Saint Peter to read at the Gates. 

The war had come and gone.  Zadkiel had fought nobly against the Fallen, watched as they were thrown into Hell, becoming the first demons.  He was dimly aware that Lucifer had been thrown into the Cage, but it had no real effect on his existence, because now he was back, signing papers and recording sins.  Every once and a while he’d have a few days off, and he’d go to Earth and have a drink with the other guys in his office, and then they’d go back to work. 

And that was his existence, for thousands of years.

And then Metatron caused the Fall. 

Suddenly, Zadkiel was on Earth, and there was not a form or copier or printer in sight.  He lost his virginity to a woman at a rave.  He got drunk- truly drunk for the first time.  He tried shooting up meth, just for a kick, but he fucked up- first, it took him three times to get the needle in, and he blew up his vein.  Then, it definitely was not meth, and he didn’t know what it was, but for a day and a half he was tripping for the first and worst time of his life.

He woke up in a ditch the next day, covered in bug bites, head pounding, sore and ready to puke up everything that he’d eaten in the last two weeks. 

But, the little taste of the Fallen life had enlightened him to two things:

  * He did not like drugs.
  * Sex was okay, but definitely not what he was expecting, and he didn’t really need it to make his life better.
  * He had had a vision from God telling him how to fix Heaven.



Zadkiel may have been a simple angel, but he wasn’t an idiot.  He highly, highly doubted that God had actually sent him a vision.  More likely, it had been the drugs, but he filed away the game plan that the vision had spoken of so that he’d have something interesting to talk about at the next office Christmas party, if he ever got to Heaven.   

That was a terrifying thought.

He did eventually return to Heaven, though it was a far gloomier place- gone was his office, and most of his coworkers.  Heaven’s numbers had shrank drastically, so drastically that each time an angel died, everybody felt it, like numbers ticking down in the backs of their skulls. Castiel had already slaughtered Raphael’s stronger supporters (and she had had a lot), and so many angels had crashed and burned in the Fall that it seemed they were doomed for extinction. 

Zadkiel’s vision suddenly felt less like a drug fueled hallucination and more like something legitimate, but _Nephilim_?  If it was a legitimate vision, it could not have come from God- God had forbidden the angels from procreating.  Creation was something strictly left to God, and procreation, mating, was of animals. 

So he focused on rebuilding the offices.  Humans still died and needed to come to Heaven, and everybody else was so busy with defense and plans for the future that they had forgotten their original task, of safeguarding the humans.  Zadkiel didn’t mind, and after weeping over his fallen companions, had set to work, making sure their tasks would not die with him. 

And suddenly, with the entirety of human afterlives resting on his head, with no days off or companions who understood that immense pressure, Zadkiel understood how Gabriel must have felt so long ago, and how a lover combing her fingers through his wings must have felt like a breath of fresh air to the archangel. 

Nobody was combing their fingers through Zadkiel’s wings.  Once, they had groomed each other, straightening feathers as they gossiped like birds, and now he was alone. 

And angels continued to die. 

One day, as he carried a fragile soul through the halls of Heaven, Zadkiel bumped into Azrael.  Azrael, who had apparently died in the fall (“Close to death, more like.  My grace was about zip.  Got nursed back to health by a priest in Russia, and only just managed to start flying again.  Still hurts if I jump too far, but duty calls”).  Azrael had been one of Zadkiel’s higher-ups, but suddenly, with Azrael’s injuries and Zadkiel’s self-appointed responsibilities, they were on equal ground. 

And Zadkiel, simply out of conversation, had told Azrael about his time spent Fallen.  He hadn’t mentioned his vision as anything more than a passing afterthought, but Azrael had stopped him.  “Nephilim?” He’d asked.  “Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure.”  Zadkiel had paused to lay the soul down in its Heaven, watching as the powerful light had shimmered and changed into the human it had once been.  It darted forward, arms out, laughing as it was reunited with another soul.  A beautiful thing, he thought.  A noble thing, that the other angels had forgotten.  “I’m not sure,” he repeated, turning to return and gather more souls from the Reapers.  “I was high.  I doubt it was real.  Pretty funny though, huh?  We stopped that whole Nephilim thing for a reason.”

Azrael had been quiet for a long moment.  “Lucifer had a child,” he finally said.  “I heard about it before I returned.  “The child is with the Winchesters.”

“Winchesters?”  Zadkiel had paused, not sure what the gun company had to do with anything.

“Sam and Dean,” Azrael added, head tilted as he waited for Zadkiel to get the connotation. 

Zadkiel opened his mouth, confused.  “Oh!  The Righteous Man?  ‘Dean Winchester is saved’ Winchester?”

Azrael nodded.  Zadkiel frowned.  That had been the first part of his vision.  A new world order, starting with the Nephilim son of Satan.  He would return the angels to full power, bring their numbers from barely survivable to the ruling force of the universe once again.  Maybe, the vision had been brought about by illegal human drugs, but it had been a true vision nonetheless.

After that, there was a whirlwind of activity.  Zadkiel found himself sending a message out to a team of angels on the ground to watch for Jack son of Lucifer.  Angels were listening to him now, because he had had a vision from God, from their Father, who was still nowhere to be found.  Zadkiel was moved from pencil pusher to commander, and he found that he enjoyed the top far more than he had ever enjoyed the bottom.  Angels who had once been far above him in rank now hung off his every word, like he truly had a direct line to God. 

Zadkiel knew how to save them.  And all he needed to complete his God-sent mission was Jack the Nephilim.

 

_The Middle of Nowhere, Alaska_

“Holy _balls_ it’s cold!”

Gabriel hit the snowy ground with a crunch, gasping as an icy wind ripped through his vessel.  As much time as he’d spent as a Viking god, he’d never gotten used to the cold- even with his grace warming him, he’d always worn a coat.  Now, all he had was the jacket he’d died in, and it did absolutely nothing against the icy chill. 

When he’d adjusted to the shock of the cold, he had another shock- he couldn’t sense anything.  No- he could sense his own grace, weak and useless, somewhere deep inside, but it would be ages before he’d regenerated it enough to be of any use.  The only reason he was conscious right now was because his vessel had turned itself on, heart beating, lungs expanding, brain sparking.  He was running on biology.

Essentially, he was human. 

“Fuck!”  His voice echoed through the snow covered forest.  And then he remembered, and turned sharply. 

Raphael was beside him, face down in the snow.  “Shit- Raph, no, please-”  Gabriel scrambled through the drifts to reach her body, and turned her over, pressing his ear to her chest.  To his infinite relief, her heart was beating, and if he strained, he could sense her grace.  She was alive.  Weaker than he was, but alive. 

He allowed himself a half second for the guilt to sweep over him- she had wanted peace, and now they were in the middle of nowhere, buried in snow, and they had to find shelter, quick, because if they froze then who knew how long they would be there while their grace regenerated.  A few days, or a few hundred years- and Gabriel was not at all fond of the idea of spending a few hundred years as a Loki-sicle. 

His fingers were already numb, but he pulled off his coat and wrapped it around Raphael’s body, then, with a grunt of exertion, picked her up.  The weight of her pushed him down deeper into the snow, and he groaned as ice crystals packed into the ankles of his boots, burning cold against his ankles.  This sucked.  They were going to get frostbite for sure. 

It was a struggle to pick each foot up, and the drifts were deeper than Gabriel was tall in some places.  It got everywhere, icy against his skin- down his pants, up his shirt, soaking his socks, freezing his hair and eyelashes.  His muscles burned, and he cursed the fact that he hadn’t worked out once in his entire life.  This wasn’t exactly his most physically fit vessel.  And he didn’t know which way to go, and now he was sweating too, and the sweat was freezing saltwater cold on his neck- and then he tripped, not getting his foot above the surface of the snow, and they both went down.

He must have gone at least a mile, but when he looked back, his tracks only reached four or five yards back. 

So maybe he screamed a little in frustration, because he was alone and cold and the guilt was eating him from the inside, and Raphael was unconscious and there was already frostbite on his fingers and nose and he was cold as hell-

Something crunched nearby. 

Gabriel looked up at the pair of wolves that appeared over the next ridge, and then glanced back, to find that a pack had circled him.  The alpha bared her teeth. 

Gabriel almost laughed in relief.  “Hey, puppies.  It’s me, Loki!”  He struggled to stand, and held out a hand, trying to muster his grace to emit enough of a Loki aura that they would recognize their kinship with him. 

But his grace was weak, barely able to heat the core of his vessel, and the wolves were hungry, and all they saw were weak humans. 

“Oh fuck,” said Gabriel.  “Oh fuck.”

He moved slow, keeping eye contact with the alpha as he crouched into the snow.  She snarled, stepping forward as he reached out a hand, and he shushed her, still moving as slow as he could, numb fingers tracing an image into the snow.  Careful, careful, he finished the rune, and then he moved his hand slowly, slowly, to his mouth. 

He ripped open his finger with his own teeth.

Wolves surged forward, snarling.

Blood spattered the snow with flecks of ruby.

And the wolves slammed into a shield.  Confused, one howled, only to be nipped at by another. 

Gabriel took the moment to turn in a circle, trailing his bloodied hand through the snow to trace a circle, and then began to add more runes, biting into the wound each time it began to scab over.  He’d thought it would be sick and gruesome, and the blood in his mouth certainly wasn’t nice, but his hands were so numb that actually wounding himself caused no pain. 

The wolves paced, watching him, occasionally growling, and when he finally sat down in the center of the circle, next to Raphael’s body, he waved cheerfully at them.

They were sunk in the snow at this point, and he used it as a blanket, best he could, half burying Raphael’s body so she would at least be out of the wind.  Her hands and face were too cold- they needed to get inside soon, or her grace would have the double effort of both healing itself and healing the vessel.  Not an impossible task, but certainly an obnoxious and long one.

Gabriel slumped down next to her, and a moment later found his eyes drifting shut.

It had taken a lot, breaking through the wall back into the universe.  Raphael had put in the majority of the effort, but it was no small task for Gabriel as well.  Everything was sore, or would have been sore, if it wasn’t frozen.  He couldn’t even bend his fingers anymore, unable to feel enough to be granted access to the muscles.  And the tips were white now, that dangerous white that meant permanent damage. 

And yet, sleeping meant that not only could his shields be broken if the wind picked up a snowdrift and ruined his runes, but also that they would be frozen here, in the middle of the wilderness, for who knew how long.

It hurt, physically, but Gabriel hauled himself to his feet and began pacing.  Two steps forward, two steps back- it was easier when he started to wear a path, and at least now he couldn’t feel the cold against his flesh. 

Two steps forward, two steps back. 

It was already twilight.  Soon it would be pitch black.  The wolves would probably leave soon, for easier prey, and then he could haul Raphael to hunker down under a pine tree.  For now, they were trapped.

Two steps forward, two steps back.

His meatsuit was about destroyed right now.  His fingers would probably snap if he tried to bend them too hard, and his feet were no doubt blocks of ice in his shoes.  Even if they got to some place warm, it would take a miracle to fix the dead flesh.  And with his grace so low-

He lost his train of thought as he tripped and fell, sinking into the snow.

He lay there for a moment, resting.  He had stashed several vials of spare grace around the world.  If he could get one, he and Raphael could split it, or he could give it all to her, and she could fly him to another one.  It wasn’t a perfect fix, but it would be a nice kick start.  As long as they could last until morning…

He realized with a start that the wolves had finally gone.  It was full dark now, black as pitch, and somewhere an animal screamed as it was dispatched by an owl. 

If he closed his eyes, just for a moment, there would be no harm in it, right?

 

_The abandoned field outside of Brentwood_

Her hour was almost up.  Jenny’s eyes were swollen and her throat was dry from crying, but her decision was made.  She had a choice, after all.  It was a choice that she had never in a thousand years thought she would have to make, but now she had to make it. 

Let someone die and live herself, or die herself and let someone live. 

She didn’t even know the last makeup artist’s name, and yet now, here she was, with his life in her hands.  And she knew the right thing to do, knew what she had to do.  Her parents had raised her to do the right thing, and if it had all come down to this moment, she hoped they could be proud. 

She knew they wouldn’t be proud.  They would be horrified.  They would have commanded that she do what she could to survive, that she get out of there alive so she could remain with them, but then, they didn’t have to live with it, did they?  A death on their conscience? Jenny didn’t think she could do that.  Even if she did escape, she would always remember that she had let somebody die, and there was no way that she could let that happen. 

She didn’t even know his name, but she was going to save his life. 

It took all her courage to stand up and walk over to the door of the trailer, but she did, taking a deep breath.  She would face her fate head on.  She would die with dignity.

The thought almost made her start crying again, but this time she swallowed the emotion and stepped out the door. 

Outside was complete chaos. 

Bethany, the dance girl, was shrieking bloody murder, being bodily hauled away by Emmett the strongman as she lunged for the dance captain.  The dance captain was examining her fingernails, like she didn’t notice that her one armed dancer was shrieking that she was going to kill her. 

That commotion had in turn, upset the lizard boy, who was snarling and trying to gnaw through his chain.  The fairy-looking girl holding the chain was yelling at him to settle down. 

Bethany turned her ire onto Emmett, trying to claw out his eyes.  That sent him stumbling backwards into a four armed man juggling multiple bowling pins.  A bowling pin fell out of the sky onto his head, and he fell backwards into the four armed man. 

Bethany, freed from his grip, burst forward in a one armed rage.  “You fucking slut!”  Crows exploded from the trees at the shrill scream.  “You slept with my boyfriend?  I can’t believe-”

“You only have on arm,” the dance captain pointed out, gesturing with her perfectly manicured hand.  “You couldn’t have expected him to still be attracted to you.”

“I had two arms when you slept with him!”  She tackled the dance captain, slamming them both to the lawn. 

It was utter chaos.  A plan was starting to form in Jenny’s mind.  She was going to die.  She had nothing to lose.  “Carter.”  She looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of the only friendly face in the place.  “Carter?”

There was no response.  He was probably in one of the trailers, or maybe he was over by the large tent that was being put up.  Several workers were there, dressed in dark colors, like stage crew.  It made sense, Jenny supposed, as she ignored the fight between the dancers and watched them laying out poles on the ground. 

In another time, Jenny would have loved this.  The behind the scenes of a circus, watching the massive tent go up, seeing the performers squabble-

There was a scream.  She looked back over, and covered her mouth, gasping. 

Bethany was scalping the dance captain. 

“You think I’m ugly without an arm?  How will you look without hair?!”

Jenny took a shaky breath.  Things were so chaotic here that her plan was starting to seem less like a longshot and more like something that could actually happen, but… but… she needed a distraction.  A real distraction. If things were this chaotic normally, then a dancer… scalping… another dancer would not be enough.

She looked over again.  The dance captain was screaming, curled into a ball, and Bethany was standing in the air, waving around the once L’Oréal worthy mop of hair like a gruesome flag.   “Guess who’s the new captain, slut!”

Jenny gagged, covering her mouth and closing her eyes.  She needed to stay strong- that’s what Carter had said, and that’s what she would have to do.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself.  She would have to look for him, and it would be worse than any haunted house, but she could do it.  She had to do it.

Chuckles’ face swam in her mind, and she almost lost her nerve, her fingers closing back on the handle of her trailer.  But then, stronger than her horror, was the idea of her parents finding out that she was dead.  They would be looking for her by now, tearing the town apart.  It was a matter of time before this freak show was found.

The four armed man was juggling again, while Emmett stood by.  “Are you gonna do something about that?” he asked, moving his arms independently like an incredibly deft insect. 

“Nah.”  Emmett shook his head, arms crossed.  Veins popped on his forearms.  “You don’t get in the middle of a girl fight.  Ladies’ll kill you.”

Jenny took a breath, running her fingers through her hair.  It was greasy and tangled- she looked like a mess, she knew, and smelled like corpse and blood.  She was a victim.  Nobody would judge her if she laid down and waited for death. 

But, horrifying as the idea was, Jenny didn’t want to just wait for death. 

So she stepped off the step of her trailer and started walking.  Nobody paid her any mind.  Anybody outside was watching Bethany and the dance captain- the captain had gotten up, her skull black with blood, and was snarling, still fighting though she should have been unconscious from blood loss. 

The lizard boy could smell the blood.  He was straining against his chain, practically crying.  The girl holding him was stronger than she looked. 

Jenny took a deep breath and walked up to next shelter, a camping tent with the Field and Stream logo on the side.  Jenny took a deep breath, ready to walk up to it and ask if anybody knew where Carter was.  But the tent was zipped shut and she lost her nerve, worried that whoever slept inside was more vicious than the people outside.

She bit her lip, then made a decision.  Emmett and the four armed man were still watching the Bitch Fight Xtreme in the middle of the clearing. 

There was a crash and cursing from further away, where the workers were putting up the main tent.  Someone had dropped a pole, and the red fabric was tangled now.  The person who’d dropped it was getting chewed out by someone who was probably a superior, and someone else was laughing. 

Jenny took a deep breath and then walked over to where Emmett and the four armed man were standing.  “Hey,” she said, and licked her lips, trying to speak so her voice wouldn’t crack from the dryness.  “Um, I was wondering…”

They both looked over at her, and Emmett smiled widely.  “Anthony, this is the kid I was telling you about earlier.  The one Chuckles brought back.”

“Lizard boy food?”  The four armed man Anthony caught his bowling pins as they fell down, and set them on the ground.  “Nice to meet you, kid.  Hope you enjoy your last day of life.”

“No, no, she’s taking the makeup artist role,” Emmett corrected.  “Replacing that little douchebag.” 

“Oooh!”  Anthony reached out to shake her hand.  “Welcome aboard.  Sorry if show biz wasn’t your dream.  Kinda a bitch move, forcing people on like this.  What if we just wipe their memories and send them on their way?”

“How are we supposed to wipe memories?”  Emmett smacked Anthony’s shoulder, though it was a light, friendly smack.  Unlike Bethany currently punching the captain in the face.  Each strike was a meaty _thunk_. “We aren’t the Men in Black.”

“No, no, we grab ourselves an angel.”  Anthony gestured with two of his hands.  “There’s still a ton of them wandering around the earth.  Give them protection and a job, and then they can wipe the memories of kids like this one.”

Emmett shook his head.  “Angels aren’t real, idiot.”

“What was that apocalypse then?”  Anthony crossed his arms, a tangle of limbs in front of his body.  “Just a bunch of humans?  Carter’s dad died in that.  Have some respect.”

“Hermes?  The guy was just as much of a deadbeat as every other god.”

Jenny was silent, unable to interrupt the conversation, though it made no sense at all.  Anthony suddenly looked at her.  “What do you think the apocalypse was caused by, if not angels?”

She blinked.  “What?”

“The apocalypse.”  Anthony waved a few hands.  “You know.  Seven or eight years ago.  You were what, ten?  You should remember.”

Actually, she had been eight, but she did remember- she’d lost her aunt in one of the hurricanes.  Her mother had been beside herself, and to this day, Jenny sometimes found the woman silently staring out the window, lost in memory.  “Global warming…?” she said, unsure.  “That’s what everyone says.  Um… I was looking for Carter?”

“He’s over there, working on his act with Chuckles,” Anthony said, gesturing towards one of the other trailers.  “Freaky as hell, those two.  Son of the trickster god Hermes and a killer clown?  Ooh, they give me nightmares sometimes.”

She would have to see Chuckles again.  The thought made her stomach turn.

“We’re all afraid of Chuckles,” Emmett said, patting her shoulder.  “Nobody’s really sure what he is.”

“My guess is that his mother was a demon and his father was a corpse,” Anthony put in.  “But don’t tell him I said that.”

“We’re all demons here,” Emmett said, smacking Anthony again.  “Don’t insult us too.”

“No, I mean, like a real demon.  One of those Fallen Angels from the beginning.  Like, _Paradise Lost_ demons.”

“You read too much.”

They seemed to remember that Jenny was still standing there.  “Want me to grab him for you?” Emmett asked.

She let out a breath, and then shook her head.  Carter had told her to be brave, and that was what she had to do.  “No… no, I can get him.  Thanks.”

She left them to their bickering while they watched the two dancers rip each other apart- the captain was on top now, her face so bloody that she had to be blind, slapping and clawing at Bethany. 

This trailer, hooked to a van, was not nearly as nice as Jenny’s own.  The name Chuckles was scrawled across the side in crusty brown, and the window was broken, with plastic duct taped over.  Inside, there was a noise that sounded distinctly meaty. 

Jenny took a deep breath, and then knocked on the door.

There was silence for a moment, and then the door was opened.  Carter smiled.  There was blood splattered on his face.  “Jenny, hey.  Did you make your decision?”

She nodded, trying not to think about where that blood on his face had come from.  “Yeah-” she tried to say, but her voice cracked.  She swallowed, and tried again.  “Yeah.  I did.  Can I talk to you?”

“Sure.”  He grinned at her, and there were little dimples on his cheeks that were somehow the most attractive thing that Jenny had ever seen, and there was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach once again that she had met this guy in the darkest moment of her life.  “But first, you want to see me and Chuckles’ new trick?”  He looked so hopeful, green eyes sparkling in the sun, that Jenny couldn’t bring herself to say no.

“Did I hear that there’s an audience?”  Chuckles poked his head out the trailer, leering.  The bells on his hat tinkled rustily, and the flower lost a petal with the motion.  It fluttered to the ground. 

“Yes, in fact, we do have an audience!”  Carter hopped down from the trailer, and with a flourish, held out a deck of cards.  “Pick a card, lovely Jenny.” 

She refused to look at Chuckles, but reached with shaking fingers to grab a card from the deck, memorizing it.  It was the Jack of Spades.  Careful to keep it face down, she handed it back to him.  Their fingers brushed, the warmth a beacon on her hand, and then Carter was putting the card back into the deck and shuffling them.  “Okay,” he said.  “So that had nothing to do with anything.  I just wanted to say ‘pick a card’.  The real trick is all Chuckles.”  Throwing his hands out, he gestured to the clown.

Jenny swallowed, moving her gaze over.  Chuckles leered, suddenly right in her face, and she fought the urge to gag at his rotten breath.  “Want to see a fun trick?” he asked her.

Hating herself, hating whatever atrocity she was about to witness, Jenny nodded. 

Chuckles laughed, and the bells tinkled, and he hopped backwards, surprisingly graceful in his floppy shoes.  He flourished his hands to reveal a sparrow sitting in his cracked, dry palms.  The fat little bird whistled pathetically.  Jenny gasped, despite herself, and covered her mouth.  “Please don’t hurt it,” she whispered.

“Hurt it?”  Chuckles let out a laugh.  “I’m not gonna hurt it!  I’m just gonna-”  He raised it to his mouth and bit off the bird’s head.  Blood splattered, and he tossed the body at Jenny.  She screamed, throwing her hands up as dead meat and feathers smacked against her palms. 

“That’s sick!”  She stepped backwards.  “That’s fucking sick!” 

Chuckles grinned with bloody teeth, and she almost turned to run, about to abandon her plan, but suddenly there was an arm around her waist.  “That’s not the end of the trick,” Carter whispered in her ear.  “Just wait.”

Entire body tensed like a bowstring, Jenny watched in horror as Chuckles reached his fingers into his mouth.  She thought he was going to gag himself, but instead, he grabbed ahold of something, pulling on it.  A piece of plastic?  No, the handle of a knife, coming up his throat.  He pulled it, blood dripping from his painted lips, and Jenny made a noise, physically pained herself at the sight of the cruel blade slicing soft tissue. 

It was a carving knife, when he pulled it out completely, slick with blood.  “Oops,” he said with a laugh, and held it out, handle first.  “Forgot I swallowed that.”

Carter let go of Jenny’s waist and took ahold of it, flipping it once in the air.  Flecks of ruby scattered. 

Then he stabbed Chuckles.  Blood spurted, splattering the front of Jenny’s shirt.  She screamed.

Chuckles laughed like it was a pleasant tickle as Carter ripped the knife from sternum to groin, letting entrails steam into the air.  Jenny gagged, burying her nose in her hands.  And there, out with the guts, slid a small, soft thing. 

The bird hopped away and shook itself, then began to nose its beak into its feathers, cleaning itself of gore. 

Jenny stared at it, her hands covering her mouth, and looked down towards the ground.  The headless body was nowhere to be seen. 

Chuckles began to repack his bowels, picking up handfuls of organs and shoving them back into the peritoneal cavity.  The bird shook itself, and drops of blood splattered onto the grass.  Then it fluttered up to Jenny’s shoulder, and started nosing at her hair.  She froze, feeling the tiny weight on her shoulder. 

“What’s this?  What’d you find?”  Carter stepped forward, spinning the dripping knife in his hands.  Jenny felt something tug her hair, and then the bird fluttered back to Carter’s hand, carrying something flat, like a piece of paper.  It set it down in Carter’s outstretched palm, and then fluttered to his shoulder, continuing to clean the gore from its feathers. 

Carter looked at the object, and then held it up for Jenny to see.  “Is this your card?”

It was the Jack of Spades, clean as though it had just come out of the box.

 

_A motel room in Brentwood_

Sam hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but now he was standing on a snowy slope in the middle of a forest.  It was beautiful, in a lonely sort of way, he thought.  Eddies of snow drifted between ancient trees like monoliths.  A lone deer was tugging at the edges of a plant poking from the drifts, her ears flicking as she kept an eye out for danger.  The moon was a globe of light, casting everything in silver, and stars shone like shards of diamonds in the spaces between the canopies.

Sam hadn’t seen much snow in his life.  There was the odd case up north, of course, and sometimes it snowed in Kansas, though it never stuck to the ground, but he had never seen something like this, except in National Geographic.  “Ancient and untouched,” he murmured, remembering a caption under one of the photos he’d seen. 

“Ancient, but not untouched,” drawled the voice behind him, and Sam turned around to find Gabriel sitting atop a drift, cross legged.  He tilted his head, like he was just comprehending Sam, and then fell backwards.  Fat snowflakes puffed up.  “ _FUCK_.”

Despite the chilliness of the scene, Sam felt a warmth in his chest that he decided not to dwell on.  He had more important things to do.  “Gabriel, I need information.”

But Gabriel was not listening, still laying back in the snow.  “Fucking bitches,” he said to the sky.  “I’m all like, just last til morning, Loki, and then I’m all like, screw that, I’m gonna take a nap.  I’m a cold weather god.  I _know_ not to take a nap.  Oh my fucking Valhalla- and now I’m gonna be fucking buried here until spring.  If there’s even a spring.  Great!”

Sam opened his mouth, but paused before speaking, trying to understand the string of words he’d just heard.

Gabriel glanced up at him.  “Oh, yeah, and we should figure out this dream talking thing at some point, because the more I think about it, the more not normal it is.”  He flumped backwards, looking up at the canopy.  “Mind chasing that deer off my frozen ass before she ruins my hair?”

Sam frowned, and walked over to the deer.  She couldn’t see him- when he reached out to touch her, his hand sank into her shoulder, like he was made of something less corporeal than light.  But, when he leaned down, he realized what she was nibbling on was not a plant, but human hair, black and curly.  “Your ass?” he asked uncertainly.

“Oh, is she chewing on Raph?  Just leave it then.”  Gabriel was running his hands over his face, eyes closed now. 

Raph?  Sam didn’t like the sound of that.  “Gabe, what’s going on?”

Gabriel was quiet for a moment.  “You know, you dinks are the first to ever call me that?  Like, ever?”

“What?”

“The name Gabe.  Like, I didn’t even use Gabe as a fake name, ever, because I was worried it would get back to me.  Used Mike sometimes, to be ironic, but never my own name.  I mean, I’d shorten my brothers’ names sometimes, but that was just because I spent too much time with humans.  They never did it back.” He made a vague gesture towards the sky.  “Just kinda weird, you know?  You whack jobs just call me that like it’s nothing, and we’re not even friends.”

This was an odd mood, even for an odd archangel.  Sam frowned, and took a few steps closer to him, then sat down beside him, so that there was roughly a foot of space between them.  He’d thought the snow would be cold, but in the dreamscape, he didn’t even feel it.  “Do you not want to be called ‘Gabe?’” he asked, unsure.

“Huh?”  Gabriel sat up on his elbow to look at him, then flumped backwards.  “No.  I don’t care.  It’s just weird.”

Sam was silent for a moment, waiting to see if Gabriel would clarify anything, but he seemed to be satisfied with simply laying there atop the snow. 

“What’s going on?” Sam finally asked, point blank.  “What did you mean when you said Raphael?”

Gabriel made a vague gesture.  “Oh, we fought our way back to life.  I mean, she fought, and I kinda just…”  He raised his arm up stock straight, and then let his hand flop, like a stick breaking. 

Sam blinked.  “Wait, you’re alive?  Gabe, that’s-”

“Don’t say great.”

Sam blinked.  “What?”

Gabriel sat up, deadpan.  “You know what happens when a human falls asleep in a snowstorm in some forsaken forest north of the Arctic circle?”

“They… freeze?”

“Bingo.  And you know what happens when an archangel blasts through all his strength in one go and falls asleep in a forsaken forest north of the Arctic circle?”

Sam remained silent. 

“Exactly!”  Gabriel gestured like Sam had stolen the words straight from his mouth.  “He freezes solid, and has to wait for his grace to regenerate to thaw out his meat suit.  Which could take, you know, a few days if we’re lucky, or a few hundred years, if you’re someone like me who hasn’t been to Heaven for a recharge in approximately six thousand thirty two years.”

“But you’re alive,” Sam reiterated.

“Barely,” he grumbled.  “And I fucked over Raphael.  Shoulda dragged her someplace to get warm before I went collapsing.  Least she might regenerate faster than I can.  But she didn’t even want to come back.”  He wrapped his arms around his legs and looked mournfully in the direction of their buried bodies.  “I mean, at least I have this weird dream thing to entertain me.  And I guess maybe this is pretty close to eternal peace for Raph.  That’s all she wanted.” 

Sam’s brow creased.  Gabriel was alive- “Can’t you just leave your vessel?” he asked.  “Come join us?  I mean, if you need a new one…” He hesitated.  “You could find someone who didn’t need theirs anymore.  A brain dead patient, or…”

“I like this meatsuit,” Gabriel whined, but then he tilted his head.  There was a glint in his eye that wasn’t at all angelic, or at least, not the sweet, cherub sort of angelic that Sam had once believed in.  “You still a viable candidate?”

Sam’s jaw clenched.  “No, Gabriel.”

“Not forever,” he said hastily.  “I won’t even touch the reins.  I’m just so…”  He looked over at Sam, and for the first time, Sam could see how exhausted the archangel was, or maybe for the first time Gabriel was letting him see.  There were dark circles under his eyes, a shakiness to his hands.  The boundaries of his visage flickered, like he wasn’t quite there.  “Took a lot,” he said, looking away.  “To come back.”  Then he sighed, burying his face in his hands.  “Never mind.  No, I can’t leave Raph.  Wouldn’t have made it back without her.”

Sam frowned, and then reached over to touch Gabriel’s shoulder. 

Before, in the Empty, he’d been able to do it.  Now, his hand simply ghosted through, tingling lightly, like a static shock.  “Stop that,” Gabriel said, voice slightly muffled by his hands.

“What’s wrong, Gabe?”  Sam moved a bit closer.  “You’re alive.  This is what you wanted, isn’t it?  To come back to Earth?  You can see your kids again.  You can meet Jack- he’d love to meet you.  He needs an angel in his life.  Come on.  I mean… look, if you need to, if you promise not to try to take over, I can let you hang out in my skull for a bit.  Til you’re strong enough to find a new vessel.  I owe you that much.”

Gabriel glanced up.  “You’d do that for me?”

Sam hesitated, and then nodded.  “You gave your life for us,” he said, nodding.  “Least I can do is help you out.”

He studied Sam’s face then, eyes flicking like he was reading a book, trying to find the plot twist.  Sam felt something inside him knot- anticipation.

“No,” Gabriel finally said, shaking his head once, and Sam couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed.  “I should stay here.  Wait for Raph to wake.  It’s the least I can do, after everything-” He clammed up as soon as he mentioned it, looking over at the deer, who had given up trying to eat hair and was walking along, slender hooves sinking into the snow.  “Wonder why she’s even awake right now,” he murmured.  “There’s wolves-” His eyes widened, and he jumped up, saying slightly.  “She’s not a fucking deer,” he said, and took off after her, ghosting atop the snow.

Sam woke up in the motel bed, laying in a pile of interviews.  Jack and Dean were sitting on the other side of the room, both halfway finished with their dinner.  “Morning, sleeping beauty,” Dean said.  “Feel better?”

Sam sat up, taking a deep breath.  “Gabe’s alive,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am definitely getting a cold. Right before finals. That's actually great. I'm so happy. Also I've watched the Santa Clause three times now this season cause ABCFamily keeps playing it. I used to have a crush on Bernard the Christmas elf. Okay maybe still just a teensy bit.


	9. Chapter 9

_A motel in Brentwood_

“What do you mean Gabe’s alive?”  Dean stared at Sam with an intensity that momentarily threw Sam into silence.  “Last we know, he was permanent dead.”

“Well, him and Raphael,” Sam said, slowly, painfully aware that he didn’t have all the information.  “I guess they… fought their way back?  But Gabe’s weak.  It took a lot out of him, I think.”  He looked away, gritting his teeth.  The dream had left him with more questions than answers, and there was no way he could control when he would see the archangel again.  He was stuck wondering.  “They’re somewhere… north, I think, but I don’t know where.  It’s night there, wherever.”

Jack was sitting up stock straight.  “I could go there,” he said, tilting his head.  “I could try to bring him here.”  He seemed to have forgotten (or was ignoring) his lack of control over his powers.

Sam didn’t say that he had offered Gabriel a jump in his head.  Dean would probably birth a cow if he heard that little detail.  But he shook his head.  “Wherever he is, he’s stuck there.  He said they were both weakened by coming back, and I guess he needs his grace to regenerate itself…”  He looked away, jaw clenched.  “That’s all I know.  He was… I dunno, he was quieter than he normally is.”  He didn’t mention the little name monologue he’d been treated to.  That felt private, though he had no idea how it was.

Dean studied Sam a moment, and Sam could see the gears in his brother’s head turning.  That was John’s work there, bestowing the mind of a hunter onto Dean.  An ally was alive- an ally who had only become an ally in a moment of _the enemy of my enemy is my friend_ \- because if Lucifer hadn’t been threatening Gabriel’s pagan lifestyle, then there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that they wouldn’t have even realized the annoying demigod was more than he seemed. 

“You said he’s weak,” Dean said slowly, eyes narrowed.  “How weak?”

Sam licked his lips, unsure.  “Grounded, for the moment,” he finally said.  “And he doesn’t want to leave Raphael.”

“ _Shit_.”  Dean looked away, irritated.  “I forgot Raphael.  Okay.  They’re both grounded.  You sure?”

Unless Gabriel was lying, but the last time Gabriel had looked that exhausted had been in a circle in an abandoned warehouse.  There was something raw, in seeing the tired sadness on the archangel’s face.  Something old, beyond Sam.  Like the worst he could feel was a miniscule fraction of what the angel could feel.  It left an odd, hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I’m sure.”

Once, Dean wouldn’t have accepted that answer.  Once, it would have led to an argument on trust and decisions and Sam’s choice in friends.  Those days were long ago, but Sam still tensed for the pushback.

It never came.  “We wrap up this case quick as we can then,” Dean said, expression steeled.  “And then we get Raphael under lock and key while he’s still weak.  Or she.  They?” 

Sam hesitated.  “Um, yeah, ‘they,’ I guess.”

“Get Raphael under lock and key while they’re weak,” Dean amended.  

The idea of Raphael swapping genders led to Gabriel a moment later, and Sam had to blink away the image of a dark haired girl’s thighs as her skirt hitched up, of her easy laughter as she let the god of thunder bite her neck, because inevitably he imagined himself, her weight dragging him down, her mouth on his lips, eyes scrunched closed in bliss-

“Sammy, you listening at all?” 

Sam shook himself, feeling heat in his cheeks that had nothing to do with the banging radiator.  “What?”  No, that was a thought he would not let himself have.

“I said,” Dean said from the door, coat already on, “that I’m going to go look around, talk to some people.  These interviews aren’t getting us anywhere, and we’ve got an hour or two of daylight left to burn.  If these kids are alive, I want them back home to their parents.”

Sam nodded.  “Yeah.  You do that.  Me and Jack’ll keep up here.  Right?”  He glanced over, and Jack nodded enthusiastically.

Dean gave them a thumbs up and headed out the door.

 

_Somewhere in the cold as hell middle of nowhere_

As soon as Sam woke, leaving him behind, Gabriel gave up holding onto an image, letting himself dissolve into a disembodied ray of light that whipped through the trees, following the deer.  He felt weak, disjointed.  It wasn’t technically a problem to be without a vessel- that was the natural state of an angel, after all.  But Gabriel had spent so long within a physical body, only leaving to switch from one to another, that he always felt frayed, like a strong wind would blow him apart and scatter his photons to the nether regions of the universe.  And not the fun sort of nether regions. 

Especially now.  Apparently, busting through universe walls left quite a mark.  Pocket universes of his own creation were one thing, but the walls of The Universe?  Not exactly a cakewalk.  Gabriel had no intent on trying that again, and all he wanted to do was eat a bunch of sugar and then sleep for a hundred years. 

Except, here he was, in the chilly armpit of the world, lacking his vessel, chasing a deer that he _really_ hoped was what he thought it was.  And it was a fast deer, and he could already feel himself slowing down.  His being ached.  The deer was drawing ahead, and he was considering giving up, letting it go, and curling up in a tree to doze and wait until spring, when, hopefully, he’d feel less exhausted and more ready to go vessel hunting. 

And just when he had slowed almost to a stop, drifting between the tree trunks like a small, hovering star, he saw a light in the distance.  He would have whooped, had he a mouth to whoop with.  As it was, he headed towards the light, letting himself fade to invisibility. 

When Gabriel had first heard about them, ages ago, he had assumed the Hunters of Artemis to be similar to the Valkyries.  Bad asses, fighting and drinking and partying until they were slaughtered and woke up in Valhalla to continue fighting and drinking until Ragnarok.  Lady soldiers, the strongest of the strong, a semi-independent army that flocked to battlefields, armored wings flashing in bloody nights. 

In his heart of hearts, Gabriel wished the angels of Heaven were more like the Valkyries. 

So he assumed the Hunters of Artemis were the same way, just with the added detail that they remained virgins.  Noble, focused, without distraction- he could understand that appeal, even if he had lost his V-card relatively early in his earthly exploits (he’d done the math once, and he estimated that, were he human, it would have been the equivalent of fifteen). 

And he supposed they were _sort of_ like the Valkyries, except, not really.  They weren’t wild, or mindless, and didn’t know what a melee was.  They were formal and stiff, and the whole virgin thing turned out to be not so much for focus or independence or empowerment, but more just because they hated men.  And Gabriel, spending roughly half his time male and half female, did not count as a woman in their book.  Artemis herself was a bit less hardass- she had made her exceptions to the no men rule, with those worthy- namely Orion and Prometheus- but if her followers knew that, then they denied it. 

Once upon a time, the Hunters had been more like the Valkyries, Gabriel supposed, but thousands of years and replacements had them clinging harder and harder to the rules, more like an ancient cult than a group of sisters. 

So he wasn’t exactly pleased that they were who were in the vicinity at the moment, but they would have to do.  Hopefully, the presence of the bold deer meant that Artemis was around, but the Hunters raised deer all the time, so it could have belonged to any of them. 

(Also, there was the little problem that hopefully Artemis didn’t hear about him being an angel, or at least, didn’t care). 

He came, disembodied, to the edge of the camp.  It wasn’t huge- definitely not all the girls were here- but there was a solid number.  Maybe ten tents, with two or three girls to a tent… A few hounds barked in his direction, sensing him even if he wasn’t physical. 

A girl poked her head from her tent, and looked in the direction her dogs were straining for (and it made Gabriel so happy to see the dogs wanted him, and his heart ached at the thought of his own dog, who was hopefully being taken care of, or else somebody’s head was going to roll).  Gabriel drifted towards her.  She looked, physically, too young for his taste.  Thirteen or fourteen maybe, and he always felt dirty taking a vessel younger than early twenties.  But the Hunters were often older than they appeared, and he hoped this would be the case with this girl. 

 _Hello_ , he said, drifting closer to her. 

She heard him, though she didn’t know where the telepathy was coming from.  She looked around wildly, braids swinging. 

 _My name is Loki_ \- he said, growing closer, letting his grace touch her shoulder-

And he was chopped in half by a bronze blade. 

It didn’t do much damage, but it stung, and the girl shrieked a battle cry, brandishing the hunting knife in his direction.  “Angel,” she growled, and then there were other heads poking out of tents, and two girls who had been on guard burst forward.  Dogs were barking, and voices passed the word around.  _Angel, angel, angel_ …

Gabriel drew backwards, incorporeal, invisible, but they could sense him, somehow.  No, actually, he realized with a start.  They couldn’t sense him, but the dogs could, and the dogs were looking right at him. 

The net came down on him before he could flit away, and the physical thing shouldn’t have caused him any harm, except for it burned and sparked against his grace when he tried to escape.  Holy oil- the bitches. 

A moment later, there was a holy oil circle as well, and the net was removed, but now he was trapped.  A blob of disembodied grace, within a ring of fire.  He didn’t try to fight it.  He was too tired. 

 _Someone go grab my and my brother’s bodies, and then we can talk_ , he said to whoever was sensitive enough to pick up on his voice, and then he let himself drift.  For a few moments, nothing happened, and then commands were given, and a search party was sent out.  Had Gabriel a mouth, he would have smiled to himself.  Everything was easier when someone else fixed the frostbite on your vessel. 

 

_In the abandoned field outside Brentwood_

“Are there two birds?  Was the first one a fake?”  Jenny was pushing it, and Carter wasn’t talking, letting her try to puzzle through the trick.  “You must have had a fake front on his shirt, to stab him without him dying…”

They were back in her trailer, and she was trying to swallow her horror and be strong.  She wanted to survive, and she wanted her nameless predecessor to survive.  Slowly, but surely, she stroked a white mask onto Carter’s face, lightening his complexion from a healthy tan to a sickly bone-white.  “How is Loretta keeping us here again?”

“Blood spell.”  Carter’s words were slightly slurred as he tried to keep from moving under her brush. 

“No, really.”  He had a nice face for makeup, bones already providing the perfect outline for contouring.  She was tempted to reach out and cup his cheek, and she almost did, made bold by the fact that if such terrible things were in the world as murder and kidnapping and people ripping the heads off innocent sparrows, then touching a boy’s face was not so scary.  But it was still scary, despite everything else, and so she refrained.  “Tell me how we’re being kept here.”

“I’m telling the truth.”  He closed his eyes as she brushed powder over his brow.  “I know you don’t believe it, but it’s true.  She probably took some of yours when you were unconscious.”

“Okay.”  She stepped back, and then started to poke through the colors, looking for gray.  “Let’s say this was real.  Some blood curse.  How would I break it?”

“Break it?”  His eyes were open now, startling green against the white of his face.  “You can’t break it.  Even if you could get past Emmett, Loretta’s vicious.  She’d rip you apart worse than the lizard boy.”

That did nothing to settle Jenny’s nerves, but there wasn’t really a choice, was there?  “What if someone distracted her?  I could sneak in, grab the… grab the blood, and then we could escape.”  She tested the gray color on his wrist, his fingers warm in her hand, then moved to dust it under his cheekbone, starting light and building. 

“Someone like me?”  Carter was still, looking upwards so none of the powder would get into his eyes.  “Sorry.  I see what you’re doing here, and I get it, I do.  I won’t try to stop you if you make a break for it.  But I can’t help you.”

“Why not?”  She stepped back, making sure his cheekbones were even, then switched to a darker gray to layer on top.  “This place is horrible.  You don’t like that clown- I saw your face earlier.  You know it’s terrible.  Why don’t you want to leave?”

He shrugged, careful to move only his shoulders and not his head. 

She stepped back to make sure that his cheekbones were even before she moved onto the black powder.  “You said earlier… monsters?”

He let out a laugh, and it was lucky she didn’t have the black brush near his ghostly-pale face, or she’d have to start all over.   “Yeah, monsters.  Here, I’m one of the monsters.  They don’t touch me then.  On my own…”  He shrugged.  “Demigods don’t have very good ends.”

She bit her lip, still not really believing it, but there was a dark look in his eyes, even if there was an easy grin on his lips.  They really were lovely eyes- green, with a crooked brown ring around the pupils.  They were eyes that didn’t belong in the face of a skull, and yet, that was what she was painting.  “Son of Hermes?”

Carter hummed, looking upwards so she could layer the black over the gray, hollowing his cheeks into shadows.  “Yeah.  Before he got killed by Satan.  Or something.  I don’t really know, that’s just what I heard.”  He shrugged.  “That’s fine.  He sent me, like, one card on my twelfth birthday with twenty bucks in it.  Greek gods aren’t actually big on the whole child support thing.”  He laughed. 

And even if the thing about the gods was a lie, even if this whole thing was an illusion, there was still no father, and Jenny’s heart went out to the beautiful stranger sitting on her makeup stool.  But she didn’t reach out to move the piece of hair behind his ear.  Instead, she just brushed the brush under his cheekbone.  “So you wouldn’t help me make a distraction?”

“No.”  His breath brushed across her wrist, warm and alive.  Not the dead rot that emanated from Chuckles.  “I won’t help you.  This place… this place is all I got.” 

And then he was silent, tilting his head up so she could finish her job.  She sighed, and didn’t dare push anymore.  She didn’t know him, after all. 

It was forty minutes later that she had finished.  Simple, a play on light and shadow, shimmering in the white and sucking in light like a black hole in the dark.  Had she seen him in the night, she would have screamed.  As it was, she stepped back, studying him, and even in the face of this nightmare she felt a tingle of pride.  A perfect skull. 

“Finished?”  It was almost impossible to see his lips move under the black makeup.  She nodded, and he looked over at the mirror.  “Wow.  You’re definitely better than the last guy.”  His hand hovered next to his own face, and then he stood.  “Let’s go tell Loretta you’re a keeper.”

She hesitated, the reality crashing back into her. 

He hesitated, and walked back over, setting a hand on her arm.  “Listen,” he murmured, and his voice was low and urgent.  She could feel the warmth of his body, too close, too near, too familiar.  “If you wanna do this, steal the blood, Loretta’s gonna have to trust you.  Maybe you can do it.  I don’t know you, maybe you’ve got the guts for it that other people like you haven’t.  But if you don’t at least pretend to cooperate, you’ll die.” 

More hesitation.  Silence, shared by two strangers in impossible lives. 

And then she nodded.  “Okay.  I got this.  I’ll…” She looked away.  “I just don’t want anybody to die for me.”

This time, his hand brushed the side of her face, so feather-light she could have imagined it.  “That’s noble of you.”  And there was nothing sarcastic about it at all.

 

_In the main square of Brentwood_

“Hey, you wanna buy some stuff?  My class is doing a fundraiser.  We’re gonna go see a play in Topeka.  _Wicked_.  I’ve wanted to see it forever.”

Dean glanced around, and then he realized the kid was talking to him.  She was a sweet little thing, all big glasses and missing teeth.  Her hands were folded neatly on the card table she had set up outside the hardware store, and she was wearing a threadbare business jacket that was too big for her.  Neatly in front of her were her wares.  A few packages of plastic wrapped homemade cookies, a few plastic wrapped brownies, a pitcher of lemonade with a stack of cups, and several crafts, made of pipe cleaners and feathers and stringy hot glue. 

“Yeah, sure.”  He put his hands in his pockets, fishing for a few dollars- the chocolate chip cookies looked great, and she was grinning up so hopefully.  “ _Wicked_ , huh?  Isn’t that the one about the green witch?”

She nodded eagerly, the beads on her braids sparkling.  “Yeah.  Have you seen it?” 

“Nope,” he said, picking up one of the things of cookies and making a big deal of inspecting it.  “You’ll have to enjoy it for me.  These homemade?”

“Yeah.  I did it myself.”  She grinned, pleased.  “Completely from scratch.  There’s no nuts.”  She wrinkled her nose. 

“Good,” Dean said, deadly serious.  “Nuts completely ruin them.”

“I _know_!” She slapped a hand against the table, like she had this discussion a lot.  “They don’t taste like anything, and they’re so hard.  I hate them.”

“Me too.  You’ve sold me.  How much do I owe you?”  He started leafing through the change Jack had given him from the diner food earlier. 

At making a sale, she drew herself up in a dignified way.  “Two dollars, sir.” 

Matching her serious look, Dean smoothed out the dollars and handed them over.  “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said, pulling one of the cookies out of the bag and pocketing the others.  He bit into it, closing his eyes- he’d never had a grandmother to make him cookies, but he imagined if he did, this was what they would taste like.  “Nice job, kid,” he said, and moved to continue on his hunt when something else on her table caught his eye.  “What’s this?” 

It was clearly homemade, a child’s craft.  Beige pipe cleaners had been twisted into a human form, and black pipe cleaners formed a pair of wings.  Black craft feathers had been glued carefully into place, layered so one couldn’t see the hot glue. 

“A Christmas ornament,” she said, beaming, and pushed the others forward- a few more angels, in different colors, and several different animals.  “I know it’s still a few months, but I thought, you know, people could get their ornaments early.  Or, like, Christmas presents.”

Dean picked it up.  He didn’t know why it drew him- maybe it was the familiar colors, or maybe it was just because clearly this girl was a master at crafting.  “You know what, I think I’ll take this too,” he said, before he could change his own mind.  “How much?”

A moment later, five dollars shorter but cookies and an angel Christmas ornament richer, Dean continued down the road.  He held the ornament in his hand for several yards, running his thumb over the feathers.  There was an ache in his chest, an empty, cold feeling that he couldn’t shove away.  He swallowed hard, looking down at the beige and black, and then, before he had a chance to dwell on the icy twinge where his heart should have been, a shadow darted between two buildings. 

Dean shoved the ornament into his pocket, and then he slowly moved towards the alleyway.  It might have been nothing, but in Dean’s experience, a mysterious shadow darting away was generally not nothing. 

And, sure enough, there was someone crouching in the alleyway, just behind the trashcans.  Dean could see the corner of a sleeve, the poofy fabric dirty and stained.  “Hey,” he called, walking forward.  “You supposed to be back here?”

“Wanna see a trick?”  The voice was low and gravelly from behind the trashcans. 

Dean stopped.  “Probably not,” he said honestly, reaching for the angel blade pressed against his thigh.  “But I’m guessing that you’re gonna show me anyways, huh?”

“Oh boy, yes I am!”  The figure leapt out, and Dean almost laughed.

A clown- a crazy clown, clearly.  Face all bloody, silly clown costume stained and torn, shoes too big.  The crinkly collar had blood spatters on it.  “You a demon?” Dean asked, and, sure enough, the clown’s eyes flickered black.  “Thought so,” he said, and pulled Castiel’s blade out.  “We can do this one of two ways,” he said, flipping the blade in his hands.  “You can tell me where those kids are, or we can fight, and then you can tell me where those kids are.”

“I just gotta show you a trick first,” Chuckles said, grinning widely.  “I’m gonna need a volunteer from the audience.”  He looked around, comically wide eyed.  A maggot fell out of his eyelid.  Dean tried not to gag.  “Looks like you’re the only audience here!”

He leapt forward, and Dean swung a punch, connecting with spongy, rotted flesh.  The clown grabbed his arm, twisting, and Dean twisted with it, riding the momentum to slam the angel blade into the demon’s belly.

Fluids oozed, and a bit of black smoke puffed out the clown’s mouth.

Dean’s eyebrows creased as he realized the clown wasn’t dying, and then, with superhuman strength, it slammed him into the brick wall of the alley. 

Dean’s skull cracked against unyielding brick, and he was down for the count. 

 

_New York, somewhere in the Finger Lakes_

Castiel watched the reunion happening before him, and he couldn’t stop the slight upwards quirk of his lips.  Once, he would not have noticed the emotions.  Rather, he would have considered it a messy affair, tearful and useless, caused only by a being’s biological drive to protect their young. 

But Sigyn was immortal.  All the Asgardians were, and she had no biological need to have children.  And yet, here she was, broken down to tears, running her hands over the boys like she couldn’t believe that they were here.  And they returned the affection.  Vali was crying, clutching her, and Nari was trying to keep a stiff lip, but he had his arms wrapped tightly around her. 

Gabriel’s family.  It was an odd thing, knowing that these were some of the creatures that Gabriel had left Heaven for, and Castiel allowed himself a moment to feel a sting of jealousy.  Gabriel had chosen these pagans over the other angels.  Gabriel preferred their company to that of his brothers.  And maybe he had only been a fledgling, and maybe Castiel hadn’t been Gabriel’s responsibility, but they had been friends, he thought.  Brothers.

He swallowed, and then stepped back.  He had work to do.  He had delivered the children safely, to their mother.  He had done right by Gabriel, even if Gabriel had abandoned Heaven, because Gabriel was still his brother. 

And now he had to return to Dean and Jack and Sam. 

When Sigyn looked up to thank him, he was gone. 

 

_In the Northernmost reaches of the Middle of Nowhere_

It wasn’t long before the huntresses returned, hauling two corpses.  Or one corpse, and one unconscious angel.  Gabriel shook himself, still disembodied within the circle, watching in a metaphysical sense as the huntresses began warming the bodies beside one of the fires, laying sharp smelling herbs against the frostbite.  It would be a while until they were ready, although Gabriel allowed himself a moment to consider how odd it was, watching his vessel from outside.  He’d done it before, of course, but it never lost the weird feeling.

Of course, this would have all been easier if they had simply let him possess one of them and then go back and grab his vessel and Raphael himself, and the heat from the holy circle was starting to get uncomfortable. 

But, he was an archangel, and he had all the time in the world.  He let himself drift off while they worked-

_-and suddenly he was in a motel room.  He was pacing, a folder in his hands.  “I don’t think there’s anybody here who’s guilty,” he was saying, though he had no idea what he was talking about.  “Nobody in these files, at least.”_

_“Maybe Dean’s right.”_

_Gabriel tried to look over at the other speaker, but he had no control in this dream. He still paced, looking down at the floor, at his own gigantic feet.  The floor was too far away too, now that he thought about it.  He was starting to have a suspicion about where he was-_

_“Maybe we should go out and look too.  See if there’s anything in the town.”_

_“You’re probably right.”  Gabriel switched his momentum suddenly and started walking towards the other side of the room.  There was a mirror above the dresser here, and Gabriel’s suspicions were confirmed, in the glance he got before he was looking down at the phone.  He was scrolling the phone to find Dean’s number, and then he was holding it to his ear, listening to it ring.  “Dammit, Dean.  Pick up your phone.”_

_“What’s Gabriel like?” the other speaker asked suddenly._

_Gabriel found himself looking at a boy, considering the question as he listened to the incessant ringing on the other end of the line.  “He’s…” he started, and then stopped when Dean’s voicemail took over.  “Dean,” he said at the tone.  “Where are you?  If you’re going to drop off the map, shoot me a text first.”  Then he ended the call and looked back at the boy._

_Jack, Gabriel suddenly realized.  His brand new nephew, sitting there on the bed, cross-legged and innocent as a lamb.  He looked like the offspring of Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, and had Gabriel any control over the dream whatsoever, he would have laughed.  Archangel babies were so pretty.  Gods knew his kids were._

_The boy was still waiting for an answer, and Gabriel felt himself sigh.  He was suddenly aware of memories, flashes of emotion- anger and frustration and three months of cold loathing- and suddenly he was in Sam’s thoughts as well, sinking down into a well.  On the surface it was words- ‘how do I tell the kid, I want this to go well, his uncle’s a dick, but he sacrificed himself for us, where’s dean, I hope there’s no more clowns here, maybe Gabe will be good with Jack, hopefully’-_

_And then he was sinking deeper than words, into flashes of memory, blood and screaming and yellow eyes and an undercurrent of power humming beneath everything_ -

“Loki!”

And he was back, body tingling all over like he was being devoured by fire ants.  “Fucking balls,” he hissed, sitting up and looking at his own hands.  “Couldn’t have waited until I was all alive again?”

A hand, gentle but firm, pressed his shoulder down, and he realized that he was lying on a cot lined with furs.  The caribou pelt was soft and thick beneath him, layers of fur that had been treated until the animal smell was gone and left only blanket. 

He was looking up into gold eyes- not his own whiskey gold, but molten gold, with swirling whorls of red and white continuously moving around the black hole of the iris.  Eyes like a burning star, like the sun itself.  And they were crinkled slightly around the edge, in a grin.  “You know, if I had known you were an archangel, I would have tried to hook up with you a few more times.”

“Shut up, Apollo,” Gabriel grumbled, sitting up again despite the god’s nonverbal admonishments.  The static burn all over his body as blood returned to his flesh made his grace ache as well.  “It’s still Loki, to you.”

Apollo stood and stepped back, shrugging.  “Whatever you say, Gabe.  Last I heard, Kali was saying you were dead.  You don’t look very dead to me.”

He didn’t have nearly enough grace to spare, but he used a bit to speed up the healing, to skip through the fire ants part of coming back to life.  Apollo could have done that for him while he was still unconscious- he was the god of healing, after all.  It seemed a purposeful thing that he hadn’t.  Now he was even more exhausted than he had been, but at least he could move all his limbs again.

“Guess we shoulda figured it,” Apollo said, sitting backwards on the other cult.  “Loki, god of lies.  You pretty much told us you weren’t who you said in the name.”

“Why do you care?” he asked, standing and stretching, both to crack his back and to let the fire in the center of the large tent throw the shadow of his wings back over the wall- let the Greek know what he was dealing with. 

There was no terror in Apollo’s molten eyes as he took in the shadow though, memorizing them even as they faded away.  There was only-

Suddenly Gabriel was thrown back against the cot, and Apollo’s body was on top of his.  “Really an archangel, huh, Loki?” Apollo asked, and his voice took on a husky tone as he pressed a hand to Gabriel’s chest, fingers splayed and warm through the fabric of his shirt.  “Does that mean you were holding back, last time?”  He leaned closer, perfect lips parted, firelight turning golden hair into dancing curls.

Gabriel’s breath caught- sex with Apollo was like sex with the sun- hot and burning and trembling warm like two bodies lying on a beach in July.  And Apollo heard the catch, and his hand trailed from Gabriel’s chest to his hip, leaving a trail of pleasantly tingling heat, where he stopped, toying with a belt loop.  They were frozen there, a moment.  Apollo dared not go further until Gabriel kissed him back, and Gabriel-

Apollo’s eyes were gold, not hazel. 

It was an unconscious thought, a hesitation, but Apollo caught it and sat back, letting Gabriel up.  “Another time then,” he said with a shrug, like he hadn’t just been pinning the trickster down to the bed.  “Who is it?”

“What?”  Gabriel lay there a moment more, trying to figure out the cloud in his head.  Apollo was great- it’d be an awesome way to herald in his second chance, and yet…

“You’re thinking about someone.”  Apollo was sitting cross legged now, a lyre in his lap, picking at the strings absently.  Even casually, the music was lovely.  “Anyone I would know?” 

Gabriel hesitated, and then shook his head.  “It’s nothing.”  Literally nothing, he told himself, and moved closer, to set a hand on Apollo’s leg.  But the movement was forced, and the god raised an eyebrow. 

“Another time is fine, Loki,” he said with a shrug.  “I get it.  All shiny and new, back from the dead, and you wanna get with Thor or someone.  It’s no big.”  He grinned to show that he wasn’t offended, and Gabriel huffed, sitting back.  “At least, you were actually dead, right?  Normally I’d doubt it, but you were so ragged when I put you back together… Woke up fast though. I thought you’d be out for a few days, at least.”

“Yeah.  I was dead.”  Gabriel tugged on the caribou skin, pulling it up around his shoulders.  Even though the interior of the large tent was warm with the small fire, letting smoke drift up through the hole in the roof, he was chilled deep inside, like his vessel hadn’t completely thawed.  Apollo’s body would have fixed that, he thought to himself, frustrated with his own hesitation.  “Dead-dead.  Other side dead.  Empty dead.  It sucked.”

Apollo nodded, studying him.  “And you’re actually an archangel?”

He looked away, and nodded. 

There was no betrayal here, no heavy lie.  Apollo lived on Olympus, not Asgard, and the only love between them was a light friendship and the occasional booty call, sometimes drunken, sometimes sober.  And Apollo was light-tempered- Gabriel had heard about his anger only a few times, and most of the time it was in defense of his sister.  He wouldn’t be angry enough at Gabriel’s true identity to try anything. 

Apollo let out a low whistle, and the music stopped.  “That’s hot, man,” he said, and laughed, loud and musical.  “Secret identity, double life.  I’m jealous.  Your Asgardians know?”

“They probably do now,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes.  “Kali told?”

“Yeah, Kali told.”  Apollo nodded.  “Nobody believed her at first, but then the angels were all freaking about your sudden return and death, when you and Odin kicked it.  Oh, I knew that’d get a smile out of you.”

Gabriel quickly wiped the cruel leer off his face.  “Where’s Raphael?” he asked suddenly, remembering the reason for his mission.

Apollo jerked his thumb towards the door.  “Another tent, sleeping.  Lemme tell you, you angels are hard to kill.  She’ll probably wake up in a few days, and a pop up into Heaven will fix her all up.  You though… you’re weird.  You should be unconscious.”

“Yeah.  Half pagan at this point.”  He shrugged, not denying that ages outside Heaven had changed his physiology.  “I’ll sleep later,” he promised, mostly to himself.  “Who’s in Asgard now?”

Apollo let out a breath through his teeth, thinking.  The lyre notes started up again, as absent as a cat flicking its tail.  “Thor’s taken over, I think.  Hooked up with Freya a bit ago, and she made some noise about one of your sons making a bid, but I was too distracted to catch which one.”  He shrugged apologetically. 

That was frustrating, but Gabriel could understand.  Freya was about as distracting as they came.  “Anything else?”

Apollo shrugged.  “I dunno, you’ve got a lot of kids, man.  Vikings.  You guys aren’t exactly that great at information.  And we were enemies for a bit there, and some of them still remember that.”

Gabriel grinned slightly.  “You attack one Roman outpost…”

“Try twenty Roman outposts,” Apollo grumbled, and Gabriel laughed, then stood.  “Thanks for stitching my meat suit back together,” he said, stretching and trying to get the bone-chilling numbness in the center to go away.  “But I’ve got some stuff to clean up.”

Apollo nodded and stood as well, the lyre vanishing.  “Need a ride to the nearest town?  You’re not really in a state to hike right now.”

“But I’m in a state to get laid?” Gabriel asked, raising an eyebrow.

The sun god winked.  “Everybody knows you’re always in a state to get laid, Loki.  Whoever’s on your mind had better watch out.”

As soon as he said that, Gabriel could taste the power thrumming deep in Sam’s essence again, an echo from his dream.  A low pulse, something unnatural, leftover by psychic abilities and demon’s blood.  He’d felt that before, when he’d first met the hunter, but he hadn’t been able to sense much of anything when he’d been dead.  And now, if he was picking up on that again…

Yeah, he needed to figure out what the connection was before it went horribly wrong. 

“Yeah, we’ll take a ride,” he said.  “Anything to get away from your sister’s minions.”

Apollo grimaced.  “One of them shot me when I showed up to help.”

 

_An abandoned field outside Brentwood_

“Gladiators,” Loretta mused, looking down at the man whom Chuckles had dumped into the cage.  “Gladiators fighting the lizard boy?  Nobody fights the lizard boy.  He’s vicious.”

Chuckles nodded, but he was running his wet red tongue over his lips as he inspected Dean’s form.  “But this isn’t our normal victim, Loretta darling.  This is a hunter.”  He leaned against the bars, squishing his face in an effort to look closer.  A line of blood was crusting down Dean’s face from where he’d hit his head.  “A pretty hunter.”

Loretta took a slow breath, pinching the bridge of her nose.  She stood there, silent for a moment, light throwing her scars into deep shadow, before turning to Chuckles.  “You bagged a hunter, sugar?”

Chuckles nodded, grinning more than usual.  His filed teeth glinted in the dim light of the trailer. 

“Are you stupid?” She looked over at him like she genuinely questioned it.  “Our opening night is tomorrow.  We’re completely booked.  We have VIPs for this show- and you brought a hunter here?”

“All the better,” Chuckles crooned.

There was a groan in the cage as Dean started to come to.  They both fell silent, watching him blink blearily at his surroundings, and then Loretta turned back to Chuckles.  “You’re sure he’s a fighter?”

Chuckles nodded, and reached into his ear.  He made a face as he dug around a bit, and then pulled something out.  Something long, too long for an ear canal, and Loretta tried to swallow her impatience as he wiped blood and brains off it onto his pants. 

And then she gasped, despite herself.  “An angel blade?”

Chuckles nodded, and flipped the blade into the air so it landed tip down on his finger and balanced it there for a moment, before he set it spinning with his other hand.  Flickers of holy light twirled across the walls, through the cages, like a divine crystal ball.  “We caught ourselves a hunter angel.”  He raised his eyebrows at Loretta.  “It’ll be a good fight.  Trust me.”  He giggled. “Someone will get torn apart.”

 “He’s pretty enough to be an angel,” Loretta mused, watching him push himself up.  He fixed her with a green glare, then lunged at the cage, throwing an arm out to grab her.  She stepped back neatly, ignoring his sudden stream of growled threats.  With a habitual flourish, she snatched the blade from Chuckles. 

As soon as the hunter saw the movement, he froze, eyes narrowing.  “That’s mine.”

Loretta smiled.  “Oh yes it is, sugar.  And you’ll get it back.”  She stepped forward, tracing the tip over his perfect cheekbone, admiring the spattering of freckles.  He was beautiful, she thought to herself.  It was a pity they were on opposite sides in this.  “Tomorrow night, there will be a fight.  If you win, you will have your sword back, and your freedom will be granted.  If you lose, well…”  She tapped the flat of the blade against his collarbone.  “I think you know.”

His eyes narrowed, and then he struck like a snake, one hand grabbing the blade and one hand grabbing her neck.  His fingers wrapped tight around the sharp edges, blood oozing, squeezed tight around her neck. 

“Look, bitch,” he growled, face a mere centimeter from her own, “I don’t care what your plan is here.  There’s two kids missing, and I plan on getting them back.  And then, I plan on killing you and your freaky clown fuckbuddy.”

Despite her windpipe being crushed by the hunter, she smiled.  “Oh, sugar.  One of your kids, the boy… he’s dead.  My associate here killed him.”

Chuckles waved cheerfully.

The grip tightened.  She smiled, and then brought a knee up through the bars, quick and sure, and suddenly the hunter released her, falling backwards with a cry of surprise.  He didn’t go down though, and she had a feeling the knee to the balls had only angered him more. “You have a high pain tolerance,” she said with a little smile, trailing the now bloody tip of the blade along the edge of one of her scars.  “So do I, sugar.  But it is not me you’ll have to fight.  Rest up.  Get angry.  Tomorrow night, you will be a star, or you will be dead.”

She was already turned, walking out the door, when she heard him slam into the bars behind her, a stream of insults lacerating the air as she shut the door behind her.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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Apollo drove a Lambo. 

There was no reason for Apollo to be driving a bright yellow Lamborghini.  There was no physical way the Lambo should have been able to move in the heavy winter weather.  And yet, here they were, gliding easily atop the snow on the isolated logging road in a generally southern direction, towards the nearest town.  Gabriel had tried to cast out his grace to find the locations of the Winchesters and Jack, but either they were too far and he was too weak, or the carvings on their ribs by Castiel still held, or Jack was protecting them somehow.  He suspected the first one, and maybe the second one.  The third one was unlikely. 

Pop music was playing on the radio, though there were no nearby radio towers, and Justin Bieber’s voice coiled around them, bad Spanish making the Gift of Tongues part of Gabriel’s grace ache in a familiar way, offended by the blatant slaughtering of another culture’s language.  He was back on Earth.  He was truly home. 

Raphael was curled in the back of the car.  She’d started to come to when Apollo had moved her, carrying her bridal style from the tent to the car, but a touch from the healer god had put her under again.  Gabriel liked to think that maybe, on some level, she recognized a fellow healer and felt safe, but he suspected it was more likely that she was just too exhausted from breaking through the wall of the universe. 

“You should sleep,” Apollo said, nodding up at the sky.  His molten eyes were glowing when he glanced over at Gabriel. “I can’t fly until daytime, and you’ve still got a few hours.  Night’s long up here.” 

He shook his head.  “I’ll sleep when Raph wakes up,” he said, reaching forward to turn the car’s heat vents towards him, trying to thaw the core of his vessel.  “I owe her.”

“You’re safe here,” Apollo said, looking back at the road.  He actually had to pay attention.  Apparently, the deer didn’t recognize the sound of the expensive motor, and multiple ungulates had already leapt in front of them.  “I literally don’t even care that you lied to everyone and turned out to be hiding your entire identity.”

“Thanks,” Gabriel said through his teeth, and still remained upright, keeping vigil until Raphael’s grace regenerated to the point where she could protect herself. 

Apollo sighed, and there was silence for a few moments, but neither god was good at silence.  They both turned to say something at the same time, and there was a moment of ‘no, you go,’ ‘no, you were gonna talk first.’

“I was just gonna say, did you see that tree that looks like it’s jerking off?” Gabriel pointed out the window.

Apollo slammed on the breaks, sliding a bit in the snow, and backed up a few feet.  Sure enough, the tree’s branches drooped and tangled in such a way that it formed a lewd image, if squinted a little and also possessed the mind of a middle schooler.  They had a good laugh, and Apollo put it on his Snap story. 

“What were you gonna say?” Gabriel asked when they were moving again. 

Apollo blinked.  “What was I gonna say…?  I dunno, I forgot.  Wait, no, I remembered.  What happened to you when you were dead?”

“What?  Nothing happened.”  He shrugged and sank deeper into the seat, looking at the shadows cast by the headlights.  “It sucked, obviously.  Just a whole lot of laying around sleeping.  Nothing interesting.  Nothing new.  Just… nothing.”

Apollo nodded, long fingers light on the wheel.  “You just seem quieter than normal…”

“Do we know each other well enough to know each other’s normal?”  It was a defensive snap, and he immediately regretted it.  Apollo fell silent, but it wasn’t an injured or offended silence.  It was a waiting silence.  Gabriel sighed, looking upwards, and he knew Apollo wouldn’t be hurt if he didn’t say, but it was weighing on him.  “Just got a slideshow of one of my lowest points before I got back,” he grumbled, looking out the side window into the dark forest.  “Nothing crazy.  I’ll get over it.”

Apollo nodded, and then looked over again.  He was quiet for a long moment, and beyond the face of the handsome youth, there was the sad look of an old god.  “Sometimes,” he said softly, “you have to clean out those old wounds, if you want them to heal properly.”

Gabriel didn’t look over.  He didn’t want to see the pity.  “Time heals everything,” he replied.

“Not if infection lies under the surface.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to make another comeback, but he couldn’t think of any more healing metaphors, so for once, he remained silent, pretending to ignore the fact that Apollo was studying him intently.  He considered making a comment about hyacinths to throw Apollo off his back, but that would have been pushing buttons, and right now, the sun god was his only ally. 

There was a warm hand on his shoulder, and it squeezed lightly, before Apollo took up the wheel again.  “We all have dark moments,” he said, and looked forward, giving Gabriel the privacy he could in the shared space of the car.  “If you ever need to talk- MOTHER FUCKER!”

Gabriel was thrown forward as Apollo slammed the breaks.  The moose paused in the road, looking at them curiously, and then continued its slow amble to the other side.  Apollo shot a glare towards the sky.  “Is it morning yet?  I want to fly.”  

The tension was broken between them, and Gabriel slung an easy smile in his direction.  “You could fly now, make morning come early.”

“Nah.  Dad’ll skin me alive if I pull that crap again.”  Apollo flipped off the moose.  The moose grunted at them.  “Besides, these Northern gods will notice, and they’re freaks.”  He glanced over, an eyebrow quirked. 

Gabriel grinned slightly.  “That we are.”

 

_Brentwood, the abandoned field_

There was a phone ringing, but it wasn’t Loretta’s.  She frowned, the motion pulling at her scars, and patted her hips, looking for the source, then realized it was coming from her desk, across the office tent she had set up.  It was the prisoner’s phone, buzzing and ringing incessantly, and she picked it up with only a slight sense of worry- hunters always traveled in pairs.  And Chuckles had only nabbed one- the other one would not be far behind. 

_Unknown number_ , the phone said.  Loretta wasn’t sure how wise it was, but she answered it anyways.  “Hello?”

There was hesitation on the other end of the line, and then a man’s gruff voice.  “Dean?  It’s Cass.”

The ground seemed to drop out from under her as names slotted into place.  Dean and Cass, no.  Dean and Castiel.  The forerunners of the Apocalypse.  She would have been an idiot to not know the names.  Which meant she had captured one of the most dangerous beings in existence, which also meant that- if it were the same Dean and Cass that she were thinking of- Sam would not be far behind. 

She leaned against the desk, gathering herself as the voice again asked, more urgently, “Dean, answer me!”

She licked her suddenly dry lips.  “Dean can’t come to the phone right now, sugar,” she said, and despite her sudden worries, her voice came strong and sultry.  “He’s a little busy.”

“What?”  Castiel’s voice was confused.  “Who is this?”

In a fit of inspiration, she moaned into the phone, low and breathy, and then giggled.  “Call him back later, sugar.”  Then she hung up, finger swiping the red button a little harder than necessary. 

Her mouth was dry as she sat back against the desk, the phone so tight in her hand that her knuckles were white.  She had captured, not an angel, but Dean Winchester himself.  She had not only captured Dean Winchester, but she had toyed with him, threatened his life, and anybody who even interacted with a Winchester ended up dead.  And he knew that the boy from the haunted house was dead- that was what she got for letting Chuckles go out and have his fun. 

For a moment she considered knocking him out, packing up the whole circus, and starting again across the country.  But there was only twenty-four hours until the show scheduled for the next night, and she had a VIP coming, and he would not be disappointed.  It would be her life if she offered him a rain check. 

So she steeled herself.  “The show must go on,” she murmured, and turned to look at her reflection in the mirror, at the hideous scars that she sliced into each new meatsuit, to remind herself of the freak she had been once in life. 

Dean and Sam would both simply have to die.  Impossible as it was, it was her or them.  And there would be no torture, no showmanship to the murders, because she knew, if she even gave them an inch in front of an audience, they would take a mile. 

She had already died once in front of her freaks, at the hands of that fucker Loki.  She would not die again. 

The only question was whether to leave Dean alive while she killed Sam, or go out and kill Sam before she came back to kill Dean.  Or perhaps, she could kill Dean, while Chuckles went out to kill Sam, or vice versa.  She loathed to trust anybody with this, but Chuckles was cruel and deranged enough that he might actually have a shot at taking out a Winchester. 

She nodded at her reflection, making up her mind.  She would send Chuckles to kill Sam, and he could use the leverage of Dean’s remaining alive to make the tall one die quietly.  Then, with Sam dead, she would simply take a knife to Dean’s throat, and everything would work out. 

Loretta let out a slow breath.  It whistled through her scars.  The only hitch was Castiel, but they would simply have to burn that bridge when they got to it.

“Chuckles!”  She stepped out of the tent, looking around the field.  The main tent had gone up nicely, silky black fabric ruffling slightly in the breeze, but she didn’t have time to admire it.  She headed instead towards the blood splattered trailer on the other side. 

Before she made it more than a few steps, there was hot, putrid breath on the back of her neck.  “Chuckles,” she said, turning to face the disgusting creature.  “I have a job for you.”

“A job?”  His grin grew bigger, and he tilted his head to the side, like his neck had broken.  The bell on his hat jangled cheerfully.  “What sort of job?”

Despite her serious look, her scars were a macabre grin in the approaching night.  “Sam Winchester.  Kill him.”

Chuckles whooped.  “With pleasure, madam!”  And he cartwheeled away. 

_Brentwood_

Sam and Jack were walking.  They were pretending that they were walking for no real reason other than getting some fresh air that didn’t smell like stale cigarette smoke and takeout, but underneath the casual there was the knowledge that Dean had just gone out for a talk, and he was not answering his phone.  Jack hadn’t been around that long, but even he knew that they should have at least gotten an okay text. 

The sun was setting and the shadows were long and dark.  Jack watched them as they walked, considering the difference between his and Sam’s shadows- if he moved, the area around his shoulders seemed to flicker on the pavement, like there was something there.  Wings?  He wasn’t sure.  He didn’t even know what that was supposed to feel like, and he doubted the Winchesters could tell him. 

He was considering mentioning his visit from Fenrir to Sam, but he didn’t know if Sam would be angry that he hadn’t called right away.  Sam and Dean were adamant that he tell them things like that- the angels had upset them enough, and that had only been through eavesdropping.  What would they think about him actually talking to a pagan god, alone?

“Can you sense Dean at all?” Sam glanced over at Jack, sidelong.  “Like, can you tell where he’s been?”

Jack shrugged.  Everything felt the same, just another unfamiliar town.  “I can try,” he said doubtfully, but he was saved from discovering yet another skill that he couldn’t do by the ringing of Sam’s phone. 

They stopped on the edge of the sidewalk while Sam frowned at the unknown number and answered it.  “Hello?”

The volume was set too low for Jack to eavesdrop, but he unconsciously moved closer when he saw Sam’s face go pale.  Tension seemed to spill into the surrounding air.  “Oh my god,” he said, finally.  “Cass.  Seriously?  Dean’ll be- get down here.”  He looked around, then loped several steps to the end of the street.  “We’re in Brentwood, Kansas, on the corner of Olive Drive and Mercer Street.”

Just as Sam was ending the call, Jack sensed a presence, heard the beat of wings, and then they were no longer alone.

When Jack had been nothing more than an unformed creature within the womb, he had worked on instinct alone.  He could remember that time, but they were odd memories that didn’t mesh with his physical body.  He remembered his mother, her presence, her soul surrounding him.  He hadn’t thought- rather, he had been an impulsive being of light and grace, saving her life and communicating with her on a level that now, tied down by his own body, he didn’t understand.  Birth had been violent, his grace tearing from her soul on a fundamental level that also ripped him away her experience and knowledge, leaving him raw and new.

(There was a reason human mothers of Nephilim didn’t survive the birth without an angel present.  Without an angelic mediator there, to supervise the splitting of soul and grace, a human was simply too weak.  Were somebody, somehow, to bring Kelly’s body back to life, she would have been only an empty husk.)

It had been the same way with Castiel.  He remembered trusting the angel, his grace reaching for him, helping him.  He’d felt safe in Castiel’s presence, had trusted him.  He remembered, intensely, the moment they had connected, and he had seen an image of Paradise.  Streets paved with gold, peace on Earth, an end to all wars… it had been glorious. 

And then he had been born, and Castiel was not there.  There had only been a corpse, and what was burned did not come back. 

Except now, that corpse was standing before him, and Jack could see him, see the living grace coiling and boiling beneath the surface of his vessel, could see the long, dark-banded wings that were tucked close to his body like some intense, night colored bird of prey.  And Castiel was looking at him in return, studying him, and he felt something like kinship, but even stronger were the sudden nerves. 

Castiel had given his life for Jack.  What if he wasn’t good enough?  What if he didn’t deserve that sacrifice?

“Jack,” Castiel said, reaching forward with one hand, like he wasn’t quite sure. 

Jack froze, eyes wide, and moved towards Sam, a miniscule amount, but enough that Castiel dropped his hand, gaze still fixed on the boy. 

Time hung between them. 

And then a word slipped from Jack’s mouth.  “Father.”

Castiel’s eyes widened, a human expression, and then he pushed forward, Jack’s trepidation be damned, and wrapped arms and wings around the boy, and Jack was drinking in his grace and burying his face in the rough fabric of the coat and Castiel’s arms were tight around the boy’s shoulders.  Jack was dimly aware of Sam leaving another message on Dean’s phone, but most of his being was focused on Castiel, on familiar feelings and a sense of home that he only got a taste of around Sam.  This, though, this was real. 

When Castiel pulled back, a wing still touched Jack’s arm.  He could feel it, though he knew at this point that Sam couldn’t see it, and it felt like an angelic secret between them.  Castiel was looking him up and down, critically, like he was making sure he was in good health. 

“I’ve been practicing,” he said, anxious under the gaze.  “With my grace.  I can fly, sometimes, and I can move stuff-”

Castiel nodded, glancing over at Sam.  “Thank you,” he said, stiffly formal.  “For protecting him.”

“Of course,” Sam said, and then he stepped in, an arm out.  Jack stepped back awkwardly, letting the hunter and the angel hug.  They had been friends longer than he existed, he suddenly realized, and it left an odd sense in his stomach. 

“You want to see?” he asked suddenly, as soon as they’d separated, and he grinned hopefully, looking around.  There was a chunk of asphalt on the ground, where the road had been cracked, and he reached out, calling it to his hand.  And Castiel was watching, and it wasn’t much of a trick, but Sam had said it was awesome, and he hoped Castiel thought so too-

A hand clapped on his shoulder, and Castiel was nodding his approval.  “That’s good, Jack,” he said, and Jack beamed. 

Sam was waiting a moment, letting them consider each other, and then he cleared his throat.  “I know this is a moment, but Dean’s still missing.”

Castiel’s expression vanished, and suddenly they were looking at not Cass, but Castiel the Angel of the Lord.  “Dean is with someone,” he said, voice emotionless.

Sam blinked.  “What?”

Castiel nodded sharply.  “I called him first.  A woman answered.”

“Oh.”  Sam rolled his eyes.  “He’ll be back in the morning then.  Dammit, Dean.”  He shook his head.

There was silence for a moment.  Jack wasn’t sure where the sudden tension had come from, and it grated the wrong way.  He bounced once on his feet, trying to get Castiel’s attention without interrupting whatever mood had taken the elder angel. 

Sam seemed to sense it as well.  “Let’s go back to the room.  We’re not gonna get any further on the case tonight, and we want to know how you are, Cass.”  He set a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, and the angel offered him a slight smile.  “And you and Jack can get acquainted.”

“Of course.”  Castiel nodded, and one wing reached out to pull Jack closer to his body.  And Jack almost glowed with happiness, pressing up against the other angel like a puppy whose owner had returned home. 

 

_A bit less further north than before_

Gabriel was chewing on some old chocolates from the console of Apollo’s car, pretending that it didn’t matter that they were slightly separated and half melted.  Apollo was giving him sidelong looks, like he couldn’t believe that someone was actually eating the old candies, but he wasn’t complaining, because now he didn’t need to clean out his crap. 

“Does the sky look brighter to you?” he asked a moment later, turning off his headlights and squinting up through the windshield.  “Navy instead of black?”

“Maybe,” Gabriel said through a mouthful of ancient chocolate.  “If you use your imagination.”

Apollo made a noise in the back of his throat, looking up at the stars, and then shrugged.  “Looks light enough to me,” he said, though the dawn was still probably a half hour off.  “You got a place you wanna be dropped off?”

Gabriel hummed under his breath, considering.  “Can I borrow your phone?”  Technically, he should have been able to reach out with his grace, but he doubted he could do that without passing out at the moment.  He needed a nap, first and foremost. 

Apollo fished it out of his pocket, eyes fixed on the slowly dimming stars, and Gabriel punched in a number, then listened for the ringing.  He waited a moment, tapping his fingers against the door of the car, waiting for the answer. 

“Fenrir,” he said when the line clicked, before there was even time for his son to ask who it was.  “What up?  Guess who’s alive again.  You mind-”

He paused for the inevitable _why how where are you are you okay dad what happened were you actually dead._

“You mind,” he started again, when Fenrir had to pause for breath, “shooting me an address?  I gotta crash for a bit.  You can meet your uncle.”

He paused, making a face at Apollo.  “Raphael, the archangel.  Just send me an address, I’ll be there in twenty minutes, and I’ll tell you everything.  Yes, fine, everything-everything.  Yes, everything.”  He growled under his breath.  “Yes, you’re half _arch_ angel.  Surprise.  Yes, I should have told you guys earlier.  My b- look, can we have this discussion in person?  Preferably with all your siblings there so I can just do it once?”

There was silence, and then Gabriel made a noise as he was hung up on.  “Salty,” he grumbled, putting Apollo’s phone in the cup holder between the seats. 

“Almost like you lied to them all their lives,” Apollo said cheerfully.  “Did you get an address?”

Gabriel huffed and nodded.  “Yeah.  He’s in Kansas right now.  I hate Kansas.  Boring place.  All cornfields.”

 

_Brentwood_

Chuckles hovered between the buildings, cloaked in the shadows, watching the boy jump around the dark haired man.  He didn’t know which one was Sam Winchester, but it was clear that the three of them were hunters, which meant that the three of them were probably going to come for the hunter angel that they’d thrown in their cage. 

He moved closer, listening to them talk.  So they thought their missing number was with a girl?  That was easy.  That was much easier.  They would suspect nothing until morning.

They turned, heading back for their motel, and Chuckles followed, silent as a wraith.  He would have to separate them.  Slaughter each one individually. 

It would be glorious.  He could already taste their fear.

Now, it was simply a matter of biding his time.

 

_Unbeknownst to our heroes, only two rooms over in the same motel where the Winchesters are staying_

The spell to contact Hela was a complicated one.  Fenrir, technically, did not need it, but getting ahold of his elder sister sometimes was like trying to get ahold of a CEO or celebrity.  They were busy all the time, and a family call often did not qualify as important. 

He was only in the beginning stages at the moment.  The beginning being searching through a book for the correct rune to use on one of the edges of the circle.  It had been a while since he’d used the spell, and recalling it by memory was probably about as clever as sticking a fork into an electrical outlet, for all the useless explosions that he could achieve with it. 

He’d been sitting on the chair, flipping through the spell book when his phone started buzzing across the room.  That alone had been enough to set him off.  He wasn’t exactly a popular god, and nobody was chomping at the bit to talk to him.  The only ones that came to mind were Jör or Hela, but Hela still hadn’t grasped the concept of a cell phone, and Jör tended to come visit in person, mostly uninvited. 

It wouldn’t have been Skoll or Hati, his own two pups, as they were more celestial beings than earthbound Fenrir.  They were generally content chasing each other through the sky, following the sun and moon.  Fenrir doubted they knew what a phone was.  Neither made any move to try to find out what was happening on Earth. 

He really didn’t have that many friends.  Maybe he should have regretted that, but the idea of people complaining and whining about all their petty problems wasn’t exactly his cup of tea.  He preferred the quiet of the forest. 

When he picked up the phone, he didn’t even have a chance to say _hello_ before the familiar voice hijacked the conversation.  “Fenrir, what up?  Guess who’s alive again.”

And it seemed that his heart exploded, because even warped by the phone, even after eight years, Fenrir knew that voice.  He had to set a hand against the bedside table to steady himself. 

And twenty minutes later, he found himself playing host to his father and an unconscious archangel, who had been laid out on the bed, while the Greek sun god flew away in his hideously yellow flying car. And then it was just the two of them, alone with an unconscious archangel.  Gabriel moved to the other side of the room, practically collapsing on the chair and taking a slow breath.

Fenrir studied Raphael a moment, but then turned away, disinterested, to look at his father, who had the weary look of a criminal about to be executed. 

“Saint Gabriel the Archangel,” Fenrir said, crossing his arms, “Messenger of Heaven.”  The name felt wrong on his tongue, a holy, pure name, where the creature in front of him was renowned for his lies and debauchery. 

Gabriel seemed to think the same, because his flinch was visible.  “Yeah.  Don’t really deserve the sainthood.”

“You’re not going to deny it?  Not going to dig yourself further in further with more lies?”

“Is there a point to that?”  Gabriel shrugged, looking over at Fenrir.  “I won’t apologize for lying to you, first off.  I will apologize that you had to hear it from my ex, because that’s kinda obnoxious as fuck, but, to be fair, I never told her.  She deduced that one on her own.”

Fenrir ran a hand through his hair.  His chest felt tight, and it took him a moment to put the feeling into words.  “We mourned you,” he said after a moment, voice tense.  “We burned your body and prayed that you went to be with Vali and Nari-” he ignored Gabriel’s flinch at their names- “And then, the next day, we find out that it was all a lie. That Loki was a fiction written by an archangel who got tired of Heaven.”

Gabriel offered a weak shrug, like he were the child being chastised.  “That’s not really your problem,” he said.  “Honestly.  It’s my issue, and I don’t want to put it on you guys.”

The tight feeling in his chest turned cold, and Fenrir felt himself freeze.  “Not my problem?” he repeated, stepping forward.  “You lie to me my entire life.  You let me find out the truth after you’re dead.  You let the honor of our family be dragged through the mud by the fact that you _deserted_ a foreign army, and now you tell me that it’s not my problem?”

All he got was another shrug.

He almost lashed out, and it was only knowing that his father wouldn’t fight back that stayed his fist.  “Desertion, Father?  Really?  After all those lectures on how we should finish what we started, how family is more important than anything, how-”

“Fenrir?  Shut the fuck up.”  Gabriel looked up, and despite the weakness of his grace, there was a dangerous glow in his eyes.  “You have _no idea_ what my life has been like.  So you’ll excuse me if I figured trying to be your father was more important than playing carrier pigeon to the angels.”

“No idea?”  Fenrir scoffed.  “I’m sorry.  Was my imprisonment on that island all those years just a petty inconvenience then?  If you recall, _Gabe_ , that was because you angered Odin.  You were his blood brother, and you killed his son, and Odin took out his wrath on us.  How was that good fathering?”

Unspoken was the fact that Vali and Nari had been slaughtered in that altercation.  Gabriel slumped, fight draining as quickly as it had appeared. 

“Not to mention, lying, point blank, to our faces about who we are, what we are, our _birthright_.”

The snort that escaped Gabriel at that was almost comical.  “There’s no birthright, kiddo,” he said, studying the ground somewhere past Fenrir.  “I’m a deserter, remember?  A coward and a traitor.  The angels wouldn’t give you anything but death.” 

“I can’t go anywhere now without listening to the whispers,” Fenrir hissed, lunging forward, towards Gabriel.  “Do you understand what that’s like?  People look at me, and all they see are your sins.”

“Must be a real inconvenience for you.”  Gabriel looked up at him, unfazed by the sudden proximity.  “You mind telling me why you’re really pissed?  Because so far, all I’m getting is that you didn’t know that a very, very long time ago, I was called Gabriel.  You brought up getting chained, which, trust me, I’d kill myself if it meant I could take that part of your life away.  And you want a birthright, which I can’t give you, because I wasn’t supposed to get down and dirty and start procreating.  You’ve never concerned yourself with rumors before.  So why now?”

Fenrir opened his mouth, but Gabriel was already talking again.  “Do you want me to tell you about my time in Heaven?  How Dad said, ‘let there be light’ and created Michael, Lucifer, Raphael, and myself?  How everything was good for a few years, until he sicced us on the Darkness- Ginnungagap, if you want her Norse name.  Although she wasn’t personified, in our creation story.”  Gabriel smiled sweetly up at him.  “They sent me against her first.  If I were human, I’d have been six or seven.  This was my first time negotiating a peace treaty, and I was so excited, because this is what I was created for- not born- literally created.  Sculpted from the stars themselves.”

Fenrir was silent, eyes dark.  Gabriel let out a laugh.  “Yeah, I didn’t get far with that.  She batted me out of the sky as soon as she saw me.  Snapped a wing, sent me shooting down like a comet into the icy wastes of Jotunheim.  And, keep in mind, the sun hadn’t been invented yet, so I’m just laying there, in a snowbank in the dark, bleeding grace all over because I’ve got bones sticking out of my body in all kinds of fun places.”  He leaned backwards on the chair, deceptively casual.  “Laufey, the frost giantess, picked up the pieces.  She found me, stitched me back together.  Fun fact- lots of different creatures spawned out of the darkness.  Frost giants were one group.  Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t spring from the Darkness, and if my Father didn’t steal me from her arms.  It would explain why I’m a fuck up, at least.”

“Dad-”

“And then, when I was able to fly back to Heaven, the battle was over, the war was won.  Our dear auntie of the primordial dark was locked up in a nice, neat little cage, and only Lucifer held the key.  Which, I should have taken, because hindsight is twenty-twenty, right?”  He laughed, and Fenrir slumped a little.  “Course, the key was driving Luci crazy, even though we all pretended it wasn’t.  And Dad had a temper- you’ve read the Old Testament, I assume, so you know how it was.  And I was in the middle of all these fights, trying to play peacekeeper, and trying to keep Heaven’s foreign affairs in order, because heyooo, Messenger, right?  And maybe I took a few hits, to keep them from whaling on each other, because that’s what the peacekeeper does, right?

“Long story short, I failed.  War was coming.  I was failing.  Lucifer wanted me on his side, Michael wanted me on his… I couldn’t betray either of them, and I couldn’t just Switzerland it in the middle.  Then I knocked up your mom with Hela, and perfect excuse to vamoose, right?” 

Fenrir was silent, staring at him.  Gabriel shot him a grin.  “If I were human, I woulda been seventeen when I left,” he said.  “I did the math to figure it out.  So, I’m really sorry your life sucks and all, but I’m doing my best, okay?”

Fenrir remained silent, and Gabriel sighed, running a hand through his hair, looking up at the ceiling.  “Look, kiddo, I’m sorry you’re saddled with this.  Anyone else would be a better father.  And it’s my problem, but it trickles down to you.  Shoulda said you were Thor’s kid, or-”

“You know Thor doesn’t care about his kids.”  Fenrir’s voice was almost inaudible. 

It was Gabriel’s turn to fall silent now, awaiting judgement.  His fingers worried at a thread on his jeans. 

Fenrir let out a long breath.  “You could have trusted us, Dad.” 

“Didn’t want to put you in danger.  Angels aren’t supposed to have kids.” 

“So you just… dealt with all this?  Alone?”

Gabriel shrugged.  “Like I said, I’m a fuck-up.  I know Daddy-o’s perfect, but I think he screwed up my recipe.”

“Dad…” Fenrir fell quiet.  He didn’t know what to say.  What could he say?  Hela was better at this, at the emotions and the comforting. 

Gabriel looked up.  “Look, kiddo, it’s not your problem.  My baggage is mine, not yours.  Don’t worry about it.  Just, when people start talking… I dunno.  It’s not like they’re wrong.  I shoulda stayed.” For once, he looked as small as his vessel actually was.  “I’m sorry you have to deal with this crap.”

Fenrir chewed his lip.  “I’m glad you’re not dead,” he finally whispered, and Gabriel looked up sharply, eyes flicking as he studied the face of his son.  Then he smiled tentatively. 

Fenrir reached out, and clasped his shoulder.  “You’re weak,” he said, suddenly all business.

“Coming back to life will do that to a guy.  Raph took the brunt of it.”  Gabriel nodded over at her, where she was still unconscious.  “There’s a vial of spare grace at my place in San Fran.  You wanna grab it for me?” 

Fenrir nodded, and turned on his heel towards the door.  Then he hesitated, one hand resting on the handle.  “I don’t think you’re a coward or a traitor,” he said, facing the wood.  “I think you were a kid with too much responsibility.” 

All he heard in response was a sharp intake of breath, and then he stepped outside, closing the door behind him. 

 

_Two rooms down_

The only thing Sam knew about what Jack and Castiel were doing was that it was something angelic.  Castiel was sitting on the chair, and Jack on the bed, and they were facing each other.  One of Jack’s hands was resting on Castiel’s knee.  The static in the room set Sam’s teeth on end and made his hair crackle each time he touched it.  He wondered if they were communicating, or mutually meditating.  Neither seemed very inclined to sit up and explain.  

“I’m gonna run out and grab a coffee,” Sam said, when he shocked himself touching the metal of the bathroom doorknob. 

Castiel glanced over at him, like he had forgotten Sam was still there.  “Yes.  Call if you need anything.”

Sam waved once, and then stepped out into the parking lot.  Immediately the pressure within the room was gone.  It wasn’t a bad pressure, but it was overwhelming, powerful.  There was a gas station down the road.  Sam planned on the short walk there, buying himself a coffee, and heading back. 

Across the way, another door opened, and a man walked out.  He was nearly as tall as Sam, and with his shaggy hair and dark coat, Sam expected him to roar off on a motorcycle.  The two men nodded at each other, and then went their separate ways, their goals carrying them in the opposite directions of each other.

The street was dark now, except for the streetlights.  This town had changed to energy efficient white bulbs, though, and they cast very little light.  All they did was make the shadows darker in comparison.  Sam shoved his hands in his pockets against the fall chill. 

It was like a weight off his shoulders, Castiel being back.  He could have laughed, if he wasn’t worried about how it would look to see someone laughing alone to themselves on a road at night.  But now everything was different.  Jack already looked happier, practically bouncing with every movement, and Dean would be happier… Anything that could make Dean happier right now was perfect. 

Too bad Dean was too busy getting laid to answer his phone.

That meant that both angels were back, Sam realized with a slight shock.  Gabriel and Castiel.  The two angels who actually tried to help them, who seemed to be on the side of humanity.  He wondered if that was a coincidence, or if they had known each other at some point before now. 

One of the pathetic streetlights went out.  Sam stopped sharply, looking around, but it was a reflex- just because some town didn’t feel like paying the maintenance bill, didn’t mean that there were demons stalking him.  Except, he was Sam Winchester, so it probably did mean that there were demons stalking him.

His gun was heavy, shoved in the waistband of his jeans, the metal warm against the small of his back.  Ruby’s demon blade was back at the motel though, and a gunshot would attract attention.  Automatically, he cast around for a weapon.  Even if it was just a faulty bulb, he wanted to be prepared. 

Before he could pinpoint something suitable, there was a crash from the alley.  He froze, looking, but there was only shadows and deeper shadows, and silence.  He was alone on the road.  Alone, and jumpy after a lifetime of running from monsters. 

He let out a breath.  The gas station wasn’t that far away, and the coffee would calm his nerves.  Or, make him more jumpy, possibly, but that was a risk he would have to take, because Castiel’s presence meant he was too amped up to sleep.  He took another step, and there was another crash, and then a metallic noise.  He froze, and a trash can lid rolled out into the road, whirring around a few times before it came to a stop in front of Sam.

That had definitely not been a cat.

Sam picked up the lid, holding it in front of him like a shield, and took several steps towards the darkness.  “Hey,” he called, tilting his head a bit so he could use his peripheral vision in the dark.  It took a moment to adjust, but he thought he saw a movement-

“Sam Winchester.”  It was a raspy voice, and he caught the whiff of decaying meat.  Sam doubted it was the knocked over trash can, but one could hope, right?  “You have come alone.”

He tightened his grip on the trash can lid, like a sad, dented version of Captain America’s shield.  “Who’s there?”

“Come closer, Sammy,” said the voice, and Sam could see movement out of his periphery, but it was too blurry to make out what it was.  “Do you want to see a trick?”

Sam considered it.  “No, I think I’m good on the tricks right now,” he said after careful deliberation.  “How about you just come out here and we can fight and then I can go get my coffee?”

“That doesn’t sound nearly as fun.”  The voice giggled in the dark, and Sam let out a sigh.  He considered shooting a prayer to Castiel, but he didn’t want to interrupt the father-son angel bonding that was apparently going on.  He considered shooting a text to Dean, but if Dean hadn’t responded to the message that Castiel was back, then he definitely wasn’t going to pick up the phone for a little demon fight from Sam.  Plus, if he paused to get his phone out, he would probably get jumped. 

For a split second, he considered praying to Gabriel, but dismissed that a moment later.  The archangel had been weak, and there was no way Sam was going to make him waste grace on showing up for a fight.

“Come play, Sammy,” the voice said.  “Come play with me in the dark.  I can show you a fun trick!”

“You know that you sound like a horror movie, right?  I’m not stupid.” Sam said, stepping away from the alley and into a circle of light cast by the next streetlight.  But energy efficient apparently meant dim and pathetic, because the light didn’t do much except make the dark look even darker.  “How about you come over here?  Then you can show me your great trick.”

“If you insist,” said the voice, and a shadow moved, closer, closer, stepping into the next circle of light, so that the only thing separating them was a stretch of dark sidewalk. 

Sam almost screamed.  As it was, he swallowed hard, gritting his teeth.  Of course.  Of course it was clowns.  It wasn’t even a particularly unique clown.  It was a demon clown, clearly, all blood splattered and ripped up, face painted in a mockery of a circus clown.  Sam tightened his grip on the trashcan lid. 

The clown leered across the darkness at Sam.  They each stood there, each in their own patch of dim light, watching the other.  “You want to see a trick now?” the demon clown asked, and his eyes were black and cold. 

“No, I think I’m good,” Sam said through his teeth.  “Unless you want to tell me where those kids are.”

The clown giggled.  “Don’t worry about stuff like that.  Right now, we’re just gonna have some fun.”  His smile, somehow, got even wider.  “I’m going to pull something out of thin air, Sammy.  Can you imagine that?”

“Can you not?” Sam asked.  His breath was shaky.  He had dealt with worse things than this, but he wanted to run, wanted to scream. 

The clown grinned, moving closer, and opened his mouth.  Light glinted off sharpened teeth.  A bell jingled on a stupid hat. 

Sam swallowed.  His body screamed to run, his brain screamed to fight- and he froze, trapped between the impulse of a phobia and the instinct of a hunter.  The clown reached into his mouth, fingers impossibly far down his throat, and grabbed something, and _pulled_.  A shudder seized Sam’s muscles as he watched, unable to wrench away his eyes, stiff as though he were in the throes of a nightmare. 

And, oh God, he wished for a second that he was dreaming of Lucifer rather than waking with this clown. 

The clown was pulling something long and thin from his throat- something that glinted, and there was red on it- a blade- a blade slicing through flesh as it was dragged from a throaty sheath-

And then it was walking closer, and Sam was stumbling back, hands raised, and he saw-

Castiel’s blade-

“Dean,” he whispered.

The clown laughed, raising the blade, and a pathetic noise escaped Sam’s lips as he stumbled backwards, trying to run while keeping his eyes on the enemy, and all he had was a trashcan lid shield-

And the blade came down in a glittering arch of red, and Sam cried out, raising the shield-

Holy metal shrieked against earthly alloy-

And then he slammed the lid upwards, cracking the clown’s skull, and again- breaking his jaw- and again- he went down- and again- and again- and again-

“Sammy?”

The clown’s face was a bloody pulp when Sam looked up, panting, to see Gabriel standing in the doorway of another motel room, only a few yards away.  He squinted, unsure if it was truly Gabriel, or just a trick of his revved mind.

And a hand grabbed his ankle, and pulled him down.  His skull cracked, and there was a sudden weight on his chest, and the clown was straddling him, looking down at him, dripping rotten fluids onto Sam’s face.  He thrashed, but the demon was stronger, fingers iron clamps against his wrists.  Sharp teeth stained red glinted in a lewd grin. 

“Time to die, Sam,” the clown said through a broken face, and the angel blade flashed in its hands-

And there was a scream and a blast of grace that set Sam’s teeth on edge, and suddenly he was alone, laying spread-eagle on the sidewalk under the dim light of a streetlight.

“Sam!”  Jack’s voice was loud in the dark, and Sam could hear footsteps as he sat up, heart racing.  “Sam, are you okay?  What was that?  It was horrible…”  Jack knelt down next to him, touching his face and arms and shoulders to make sure he was okay. 

“It was…” Sam’s teeth were close to chattering at the adrenaline in his system, but he wasn’t hurt.  The terror was stronger than any cup of coffee could be.  “It- it’s gone.”  He looked around, scanning the empty street. 

“It took off thataway.”  Gabriel’s voice interrupted them, and Sam looked up at the archangel incredulously.  Gabriel reached down, and picked up the bloody angel blade delicately, with two fingers, and held it away from his body.  “This is Cassie’s.  What’s up, Sammy?  Long time no see.  For reals seeing, anyways.  You look like you’ve been through the ringer.”

Jack stared at him, and then looked back at Sam.  Before he could ask who it was, Castiel was there in a flutter of wings.  “Gabriel,” he said. 

Jack gaped.  Gabriel waved cheerfully.  And Sam let his head drop back against the pavement, trying to banish the image of a painted, leering face from his mind.

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year, my six fans! I hope everyone had a good holiday season. I worked a bunch and got yelled at by multiple customers for the holiday flavor of ice cream not being on sale. Like, my man, it's just peppermint ice cream with chunks of candy cane, it's not that good. And two customers bought me lotto tickets in Christmas spirit and I won $5 so guess who can afford a latteeeeeeeeee.

_Back at the abandoned field, which is now starting to look like a proper circus, albeit with a black and red color scheme instead of white and red_

There was a single bare bulb in the center of the prison trailer.  Through the open slots, Dean could see that the sun had gone down a while ago now, but they were too small, built in the reinforced steel of the walls, so that Dean could do nothing with them except peer outside, if he stood on his toes.  There was someone dead in here, in one of the other cells, but Dean couldn’t see where.  He could only smell.  Only years of encountering corpses stayed his gag reflex.

It was a large trailer, probably originally meant for horses before it had been gutted and renovated.  There were six cells, Dean surmised, three on one side and three on the other, with an alleyway in the middle.  Bars separated the cells from the alley, but solid walls separated the cells, preventing the prisoners from mingling too much.  Hay had been thrown on the floor at some point, though now it was so scuffed and dirty and most of it had been lost.  A water bottle sat neatly on the floor in the corner, where someone had pushed it through the bars.

He moved to try the door again, to see if he could maybe finagle the lock.  He’d tried multiple times already, but boredom and tension was wearing thin, and he needed to do something.

“There’s no point in that.”

Dean looked up sharply at the voice.  It wasn’t the cruel, sweet voice of the boss lady, and it wasn’t the rasping, dead voice of the demon clown (that was one reason he needed to get out, because Sammy was perfectly competent in most areas of fighting, but a demon clown might be pushing it, and Dean would make fun of Sam’s weakness to the grave, but that didn’t mean he wanted that weakness leading to Sam’s grave).  Rather, it was an ordinary voice, maybe with a bit of a drawl.  “Who’s there?” he demanded, trying to peer through the bars.  The lightbulb cast everything into shadows.

“Name’s Noah,” said the voice, and then someone moved in the cell diagonally from Dean, coming up to grip the bars.  He was an adult, though just barely- he reminded Dean of Sam’s Stanford days, and the thought sent an ache of protectiveness through his stomach.  “And you?”

“Dean,” he answered, moving to the corner of his cell where he could be closest to the kid.  “What’s going on here?”

The kid was skinny, though judging by his well-fitting, stylish clothes, that wasn’t anything new.  Skinny jeans, chunky boots, a black vest over a shimmering silver shirt… he looked like a bad magician.  All he needed was the hat.  But there was a scrape on his face, newly scabbed over, and terror written clearly in his expression.  The jeans were ripped on one side, and Dean could see from the blood soaking the fabric that it hadn’t been a style choice. 

The kid scoffed at the question.  “What do you think?  All your horror movies are true, man.  And you’re about to die.”

Dean stared at him a moment, and then shook his head.  “No, I already know about all that crap.  I need to know what’s happening here, specifically.”

“Oh.”  Noah looked a bit disappointed in that.  “You know everything?  Demons and ghosts and crap?”

“I’m Dean Winchester.” 

Dean didn’t expect much of a response, but the kid jerking backwards like he’d been burned was not it.  “Holy shit,” he said, suddenly pressing harder against the bars again.  “Holy shit man, I’ve heard about you- you stopped the apocalypse!  You and your brother- oh my god, you have to save us.  This place is fucked up.  Okay, like, I didn’t realize how fucked it was when I joined up when I was a kid, but then when you figure it out, it’s too late-”

“Slow down, kid.”  Dean held up a hand.  “I’m gonna get you guys out of here.  A couple of kids were taken near here, and I have to find them too.”

“The one girl, Jenny, she’s alive.”  Noah made a vague gesture towards the door.  “Bitch replaced me.  Apparently I got too mouthy, or something.  Or maybe they just wanted a younger model, I dunno.  I’m only twenty-two, I thought I had a few more years… but the other guy they took from here is dead.  He’s in that cell.”  He pointed to the cell across from him, next to Dean.  “He’s all nasty and rotting.  I think Chuckles mighta nicked his guts because that _smell_.”

“Chuckles?”

“The clown.  The freaky one.” 

Dean nodded.  “Alright, kid.  Tell me what’s going on, from the beginning.  Me and my brother, we’re gonna get you out of here.”

Noah nodded, taking a breath.  He was grinning now, slightly frantically, like he could taste freedom but still didn’t trust it.  “Yeah, sure.  Okay, so the place is run by Loretta.  She’s the Harley Quinn looking demon lady.  She’s a freak.  Completely crazy.  She’ll kill someone while she’s talking to them, and she’ll move so fast that they won’t know they’re dead until twenty minutes later when their intestines fall out.”  He glanced at the door to make sure nobody was coming.

“And the clown?”  Dean’s voice was gruff, all business. 

Noah nodded.  “Nobody knows what he is.  He’s- I dunno.  I hate him.  He’s disgusting.  He does this thing- I dunno, I can’t tell if he’s flirting with you, or thinks it’d be hot to kill you, or what, but….” He shuddered.  “I hate him.  I have nightmares about being stuck alone with him. He hangs out with that Carter guy, the magician.  He’s pretty chill- Carter, I mean.  He’s just here for a job, I think.  And there’s the strongman, Emmett, and he hangs with the spider guy, Anthony.  They’re her goons, but they’re not crazy like she is.  You can talk to them, and they pretty much only get violent if she gives them a direct order. 

Dean nodded, filing away the descriptions.  “Why doesn’t anybody run?” he asked when Noah paused.

“Oh, I probably shoulda mentioned that first.  She has out blood.”  Noah mimed a needle in his elbow.  “Blood spell.  If she gives us a direct command, we have to do it, and we can’t run away.  She’s been doing that forever- Anthony and Emmett were drunk once and telling us their whole history.  Apparently, they used to be an actual circus, back in like, freak show days.  Loretta and this other guy were their leaders, but they were pretty much bastards to them, but they were all contracted down so legally they couldn’t do anything, and they were freaks so back then there was nothing they could actually do… then this guy Loki comes in and starts telling them how they could win their freedom, and they get to thinking that the only way is to kill their bosses.  Which is fucked, but I guess says something about that time period.” 

He paused for a breath, and Dean leapt on that.  “Loki, like-”

Noah shrugged.  “They said the actual god Loki.  But I’ve seen some pretty neat magic tricks, and pretty sure someone making things appear out of midair is just a good magician, but who knows?  I wasn’t there.  Anyways, so they kill their bosses, and everything’s all fine and dandy for a bit, until Loretta comes back from the dead as a demon.  And at this point, they pretty much figure that they’re cursed.  She kills them, they come back as demons… And that’s that.”  He shrugged, then added emphatically, “I’m alive.”

“I got that, kid.”  Dean nodded.  “Who else is alive?”

“The only ones who are actually demons are Loretta, Chuckles, Anthony, and Emmett,” Noah said, counting on his fingers.  “I guess they had more once, but you’re not the first hunter who’s caught up with them.  Everyone else either got kidnapped or joined up willingly.  Like, I thought it was a good plan, but _surprise to me_.” 

Dean shook his head.  “Why would you even think this was a good idea?”

Noah barked out a laugh.  “Well, when your dad’s dead and all you got is a bitch drunk of a mom…”

“Got it,” Dean said, nodding.  He would have touched the kid’s shoulder, if he could reach.  “We’ll get you out of here,” he promised.  “So blood spell?  Where’s she keep the blood?”

“Her trailer.”  He made a vague gesture, like he didn’t know exactly which direction it was in.  “In a safe, I think, but I’ve only been in there once, so I’m not sure.  And I don’t know exactly how it works, so…”

“We’ve dealt with blood spells before,” Dean said, nodding. “I’m sure we’ll manage.  Do you have a phone?”

“They’re not idiots.”  Noah shook his head no. 

Dean nodded, and tried to shake the bars again.  “Looks like we’re stuck here until my brother finds us.”

“Oh, yeah.”  Noah leaned forward like he’d forgotten something.  “We’ve got twenty-four hours.  Tomorrow night is a show, and we’re both slated to be thrown in the cage with the lizard boy.”

 

_The motel_

Sam was kicking himself for not realizing that Fenrir was so close.  There was a shifty look on Jack’s face too- he suspected that the boy had known, but didn’t tell, and he vowed to have a talk with him later.  But for now, there were more important things to worry about. 

Like how there was an unconscious archangel laying on the bed, and how Gabriel wasn’t looking much stronger, where he was curled up in one of the chairs, watching them.  “So,” he said, fixing his gaze on Jack first, “my little nephew.  About time we meet in person, huh?”

Jack stared at him, squinting slightly.  “I can’t see your wings,” he said after a minute.  “Castiel and Sam said you were an archangel, but there’s nothing there… you could just be a-”

“Demigod,” Gabriel cut in smoothly, nodding.  “Yep.  I’m good at disguises.”

He looked between Gabriel and Raphael.  “I can see her wings,” he said, and reached out for the edge of the bed.  His fingers hesitated though, and Sam reached out to pull his arm away.  Whether or not Jack could see Raphael’s wings, nobody needed to risk angering her, even if she was unconscious. “And I can see Castiel’s.  But I can’t see yours.”

“Mmhmm, that’s kinda the point.”  Gabriel glanced at Sam a moment, eyes flicking up and down his body in a quick motion that left Sam feeling naked, before returning to study Jack.  “You look like your dad,” he said a moment later.  “Like he was, before… everything.  All light.”  He tilted his head slightly, and a slight smirk tugged at his lips.  “Or I s’pose you could say, bearing light.  _Lucem ferre_.”

It wasn’t quite _Lucifer_ , but Sam still shivered at hearing Gabriel speak the words.  Even after all these years, something inside him still responded...  “Stop,” he said, not worried about speaking up against Gabriel.  Even when harming them, Gabriel hadn’t done anything _evil_. “Jack’s not like that.  He’s a good kid.”

“So was my brother,” Gabriel said, unfazed by Sam’s tone.  “Before the Mark…” his voice trailed off a bit as he stood, unfolding his body to walk across and circle Jack like he was studying a new specimen.  Jack turned, watching the archangel closely. 

Gabriel reached out, trailing his fingers along something with a distinctly curved shape, though Sam couldn’t see it.  Jack shivered, but didn’t move away, rather, leaned slightly into the touch.  “You have his wings,” Gabriel murmured, and then he smiled slightly.  “They’re still all fluffy though.”  He drew his hand back, twirling a downy feather in his fingers.   “Baby wings.” 

“I have been protecting him,” Castiel said, stepping forward to set a hand on Jack’s shoulder.  “And I plan to continue.”

Gabriel looked over at Castiel, silent, and for a moment the two angels gazed at each other.  Sam, despite being close enough to touch either of them, was suddenly aware that he was the only human in the room.  He got the sense that he was missing half the conversation. 

Castiel drew himself up slightly, while suddenly Gabriel seemed to slump a little, and Sam wondered what he had missed- a struggle for dominance?  A reminder of the past?  Jack looked nervous, whatever it was, and his questioning look up at Sam meant that he hadn’t been privy to the silent conversation either. 

The door opened before Sam could ask, and the man Sam had seen earlier walked in.  He froze in the doorway, holding both a cup of coffee and something wrapped in a pair of socks.  The air seemed to crackle when he walked in. 

“Fenrir,” Jack said, delighted by the appearance.  He shook away from Sam to dart across the room.  Sam made a face.  Apparently, there had been a bit more than one meeting between the pair, which he had not been involved in.  But, judging by Jack’s smile, there hadn’t been anything aggressive involved. 

Fenrir ruffled Jack’s hair, and then shot a deadpan look towards Gabriel.  “I see that you have made my room into a party room, Father-mine.” 

“It was kinda a crap room,” Gabriel responded with a little shrug.  “No big loss.  Gimme.”  He held out a hand.

Fenrir sighed, walking across the room towards his father.  He fixed Sam with a glare on his way, and Sam almost shivered- whatever goodwill he held towards Jack clearly did not extend to him, though he had no idea if he had somehow personally offended the god or if Fenrir just hated humanity in general. 

The god handed both the socks and the coffee cup to Gabriel, before moving to the opposite side of the bed from Raphael, watching closely.  Gabriel took a long sip of whatever was in the cup- Sam caught the aroma of mocha drifting on the air- then set the cup down and walked over to the side of the bed.  “Get over here, Jack Daniels.  I’m gonna show you a fun grace trick.”

Jack glanced at Sam, hesitating, and Sam nodded at him to go forward.  He moved next to Gabriel, looking down at Raphael. 

“Now this,” Gabriel said, unwrapping whatever was inside the socks, “is raw grace.” 

Jack’s eyes fixated on the stoppered vial that had been unwrapped.  Silvery fluid drifted inside.  When Jack reached out to touch the glass, it seemed to be pulled to that side, attracted to his power. 

“It’s mine, so it’s a little wonked,” Gabriel admitted, letting Jack touch the vial.  “But it’ll give Raph enough of a jump start that she’ll be able to regenerate the rest on her own.”

“What about you?” Jack looked up sharply at Gabriel.

He shrugged.  “Me?  I’ve run on less grace before.  A nap and a bag of M&Ms will keep me going for days.  But Raph isn’t used to running on fumes.”  He moved the vial next to her face and unstoppered it in one motion, before pausing.  “Shit, Cassie, maybe you should skedaddle-”

It was too late.  The grace, attracted to the archangel, flowed towards her, and then she inhaled, and the silvery smog vanished into her lungs.  For a moment, nothing happened.

And then the air became electric.  The hairs on the back of Sam’s neck stood up, and his flannel sparked where his hands brushed the edges.  Raphael jolted upwards, coughing into her hands like she was choking. 

Gabriel set a hand on her back, wincing.  “Yeah.  Sorry.  Probably tastes more like pagan blood sacrifices than pure God-juice, but…” He shrugged. 

Jack started to step back a little, but Raphael reached out to grab his arm, ignoring Gabriel to look up at him.  “Son of Lucifer,” she said, considering him.  Her voice was rough, but Sam got the sense that a little issue like that didn’t matter much to her.  “Boy light bearer.”  Carefully, she spun herself around and stood, like she wasn’t sure if her balance would hold. 

Jack remained frozen, staring at her, and Sam realized this was the first time he had seen an archangel in full glory, or at least, closer to full glory than Gabriel was.  He reached out, almost hesitantly, for her shoulder, then pulled back slightly, glancing back to her face. 

For a long moment, there was silence, and that electricity that followed Raphael around, electrons bursting through the air, excited by her power.  And then Jack’s hand curved around something invisible, and he shivered, face breaking into a grin. 

Raphael’s expression softened slightly.  “It is like going back to the eons before,” she murmured, reaching out to cup Jack’s cheek in her hands.  He tilted his head against it, and Sam could taste the electricity now, though it had taken on a less urgent tone. 

He shared a glance with Castiel, who didn’t look at all comfortable watching his charge interact with one of his greater enemies. 

After a moment, Raphael turned away from Jack.  “And Fenrir Lokison, wolf of Asgard,” she said, her voice taking on a more clipped tone.  “The… second child, I presume?”  She glanced over at Gabriel, and there was only slight judgement in her tone. 

“Second of six,” Fenrir answered, before Gabriel could.  He stepped forward, tilting his head slightly as he considered his aunt.  “Raphael the Archangel, Healer of Heaven.  There are many stories about you.”  The corner of his mouth quirked slightly upwards.  “Lobotomies seem to be one that features quite a bit.”

Castiel flinched visibly. 

Raphael considered Fenrir, her expression revealing nothing.  “You are strong, boy,” she said.  “But you lack discipline and respect.  A tragic side effect of being brought up amidst the pagans.”

“Mmhmm, being brought up amidst the pagans was a tragic side effect of being considered an abomination to my father’s people,” Fenrir replied easily.  He was easily taller than Raphael, and he gazed down at her, unwavering.  “It is unfortunate that your little rule about procreation means that the population of Heaven has plummeted.”

This time, both Castiel and Gabriel flinched, but Raphael only considered Fenrir for a moment.  “Perhaps,” she said, turning to look at Castiel.  “But what, pray tell, has new leadership brought?” 

Castiel met Raphael’s gaze, but Sam could see the tension between them.  The air crackled.  Castiel licked his lips, and then his gaze lowered slightly.  “There were… side effects… to the power I wielded…”

“Were there?”  Sarcasm dripped from the tension that rung the atmosphere.  “Is that why you are here, communing with Fallen angels and Nephilim, rather than taking your rightful place on the throne?  Or was it simply too much for you?”  She stepped forward, tilting her head.  “Poor, poor Castiel.  Was it difficult, ruling the greatest power in the universe?  Or was it just too hard?” 

Castiel remained silent, gaze lowered.  Raphael studied him for a moment, and turned away, sharply.  “Pity,” she said.  “Now I will have to fix what you broke.  Remember your failure, Castiel, next time you consider making a bid for power.”

“Things have changed,” Sam said, stepping in before anybody could get heated.  “Castiel was doing his best.  We’re _all_ doing our best.  You were going to bring back the apocalypse, so don’t-”

Raphael closed her eyes like Sam talking was a great inconvenience.  “Sam Winchester,” she said, turning slightly.  “Your loyalty towards Castiel is admirable, but once again, you are speaking about situations and prophecies that are far beyond your limited comprehension.  Obviously, the apocalypse cannot come to be at this time.  Heaven has been exponentially weakened- do not speak, Castiel; I can sense it myself.”

“That was Metatron,” Sam said through his teeth, moving between Raphael and Castiel.  “Not Cas.  He-”

“Metatron?”  This time, Gabriel spoke up, eyes big.  “He- oh shit.  Oh _shit_.  I thought that was a-”

Castiel whirled on him.  “So it was you.”

He shook his head.  “No.  Yes.  I dunno- it was foggy…”

“Guys.  It doesn’t matter.  He’s dead.”  Sam looked between them.  “Amara killed him.”  He looked over at Raphael, and then, out of politeness, quickly filled in the blanks.  “Amara was the Darkness.  She and God are at peace now.  Um… sorry.”

All the fight vanished from Raphael at the quick, vague summary.  The taste of electricity vanished from Sam’s mouth.  “God,” she said blankly.  “He returned?”

Sam swallowed.  The expression on Raphael’s face was blank, except for her eyes.  Dark and deep as the eons she’d been alive, they searched Sam’s face for any trace of a lie.  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, trying not to feel shaken by how the expression matched Gabriel’s so perfectly, when they’d outed him in that warehouse so long ago.  “If it makes you guys feel any better, he thought about resurrecting you, but he said it would have taken too much power-”

Shields slammed back up, and Raphael was the cold, unfeeling archangel once again.  “So Father has truly abandoned us, this time,” she said, nodding.  “Fine.  Heaven still needs to be cleaned.  And, once again, that falls to me.”  She turned her gaze over to Gabriel, and the air crackled.  Gabriel looked away. 

It was only a brief moment, and then Raphael looked back towards Fenrir, head tilted slightly.  He raised an eyebrow. 

“Perhaps,” she mused, “it is time for new rules.  But we shall see.” 

And then she was gone.

 

_Back at the circus_

They had told her to sleep, but now Jenny lay on the cot in the back of the trailer she’d been given, staring up at the dark ceiling.  They’d told her not to turn on the lights unless she needed to, or she’d run down the battery, and there wouldn’t be a charging station until the next stop. 

There hadn’t been much of an orientation.  Loretta had taken one look at Carter’s makeup and agreed that Jenny should stay, and then she’d told Carter to give her an itinerary.  That had said that there was a show the next night, and they would be moving on the next morning. 

This was a special show, Carter had said.  It was vital that Jenny do her best.  Jenny had asked why they hadn’t just kept the guy they had, and Carter had leaned in and whispered that nobody trusted him.  That he’d been planning something. That had been the only information that Jenny could get though, and then Carter had apologized but he had to leave and work on his act.  Jenny had asked if she could watch, because the idea of being alone was horrifying.  But he had shaken his head, told her she’d be safe in her trailer if she didn’t leave and didn’t try to cause any trouble, and taken his leave. 

And then that left Jenny alone, watching night fall out the window

She wanted to go home.  She wanted this nightmare to be over.  She could hear someone outside singing, voice sweet as a nightingale, but she couldn’t understand the lyrics.  She suspected it was in another language, but it didn’t sound like any language she’d heard spoken before.  The trailer smelled sickly strong of perfume. 

Of course she couldn’t sleep.  How could she?  She was trapped in a nightmare and the only way to get out of it was to steal a sample of blood from the head crazy lady.  Carter… she was starting to wonder if he was just being nice to keep her from panicking.  He was pretty, yes, with the way his tattoos snaked over his muscles, but he was too pretty.  He was a show boy.  A theatre kid. 

And Jenny didn’t trust theatre kids, she decided as she lay there in the dark.  She knew the theatre kids at school.  They were all nice enough.  Popular.  But they were fond of rumors and dramatics, and they had no problem throwing each other under the bus. 

She’d almost gone out with one of them.  She thought about it, as she lay there in the dark, listening to the alien song from outside.  He was tall and handsome, a runner, all lean muscle.  And he sang.  People had said that he had the voice of an angel.  His name was Chris. 

Chris had flirted with Jenny on and off, while he’d been dating his longtime girlfriend, and Jenny hadn’t known that they were still dating.  When Jenny found out, she’d backed off, but they’d broken up soon after, and she thought that now was her chance.  They’d flirted, gone on a few dates… In a fit of courage, she’d asked him to prom. 

And then she found out he’d been screwing her friend. 

So that pretty much ruined that. 

Theatre boys, she decided.  And if Carter was anything like Chris, then he would be just as bad.  Cute and flirty until the moment that Jenny found out that he was already with someone else. 

The bearded lady, she decided, because that made her feel a bit better.

She wasn’t even sure why she was thinking about that now.  Just because he was cute and nice didn’t mean that he wasn’t part of this freak show, and she had forgotten that, or rather, it didn’t even occur to her.

It had been his not letting her see his act that tipped her off.  Of course he wouldn’t want her around when he was practicing.  Because he didn’t want to spend his time babysitting her.  Even if he had been genuine about not liking the horrible circus, he was still part of it, and allowing herself to like him would be the same as letting Stockholm Syndrome into her life. 

What she needed was an ally whose loyalties were sure.  Who would not betray her, and wanted to escape just as much as she did.

And the only one who fit that criteria was the former makeup artist.

Jenny realized that with a shock.  She didn’t need Carter.  She didn’t need some pretty boy who would abandon her at the first moment.  She needed a solid ally to help her escape, and then they could escape together, and she could call the cops and everything would be okay. 

They would be okay.

That thought, of being okay, was so alien to her in that moment that she almost burst into tears. 

But she couldn’t cry.  She didn’t have time to cry. 

She sat up, swallowing the lump in her throat.  Right now, she needed to find out where they were keeping the makeup artist who’d come before, and talk to him.  Because he probably didn’t want to die, and then he could tell her how to get the blood, and then she could grab it and they could both escape together.  It was foolproof.  It had to be.

So she took a deep breath, and stood up, and walked to the door.  This would have to work. 

 

_Back at the motel_

Raphael’s exit took with it a tension that was on everyone’s shoulders.  Gabriel went limp in the chair, sipping the hot chocolate and looking distant.  Fenrir dropped his defensive stance, but now he was eyeballing Sam suspiciously. 

“That’s my aunt?” Jack looked up at Sam, and then towards Castiel.  “She’s-”

“An archangel,” Gabriel interrupted.  “A normal archangel.”

“There’s only four of you,” Fenrir said dryly, looking from Sam to Gabriel.  “Can you actually say there’s a normal for you?”

Gabriel made a face at him. 

“Look, this is important,” Sam said, stepping forward.  He was suddenly aware that he was the only human in the room.  “But right now, our most important thing is finding Dean and finishing this hunt.  So you guys are welcome to stick around, but you need to help.”

He paused, waiting for an argument.  Fenrir tilted his head slightly, then turned his focus onto Gabriel.  “Did you want to call Hela, or shall I?”

Sam felt very much like he was being ignored.  “Guys.  That clown had Cass’s blade.  Dean was using it.  That means he’s not with some girl.  He’s been jumped.  Which means, we find him, we find the demons who took the kids from this town.”

“Sounds like a wild time,” Gabriel said, “But I’m gonna take a nap.  So…” He waited to see if everyone was going to leave.  When they didn’t, he made an irritated noise, drained the hot chocolate, and then walked over to the bed, letting himself fall face down.  “Wake me up if anyone dies,” he said, voice muffled by the pillow.  “Actually… nah, don’t bother.  I don’t care.”

Sam stared at him a moment, at the way his hair flopped across the pillow, and then looked over at Fenrir.  Jack tensed, moving between them, a gesture Sam didn’t miss.   “Okay then,” Sam said, sensing that the pagan wasn’t going to be particularly helpful- he hadn’t been the first time they’d met him either, when he was a wolf.  “We’re going to save Dean then.  You guys… just, don’t kill anybody.”

“What a vote of confidence,” Gabriel said from the bed, half turning to look up at them.  His gaze lingered on Sam, a moment, and this time, he didn’t break the eye contact.  It wasn’t the normal smirk or leer.  This was something alien on the archangel’s face, something almost quizzical. 

And then Castiel was walking out the door, blade in hand, and Sam had no choice but to follow or let the furious angel take up the fight himself. 

Sam looked one last time at Gabriel before the door closed and he was alone in the parking lot with Castiel and Jack.  Castiel’s eyes were dark, and he was tense, holding himself tall and threatening like he’d returned to his post as one of Heaven’s garrison commanders.

And Castiel was furious- there was no doubt about that.  Raphael’s return, Dean’s disappearance… the angel had come back to total chaos.  “You think that thing took Dean?” He demanded, whirling on Sam.  “Where is he?  Where did you last see him?”

Sam touched Castiel’s arm, trying to calm him down a bit, though his touch did nothing to help the angel’s mood.  “He went out to see if he could find any clues.  I didn’t think there’d be an issue.  We’ll find him, Cas.”

“He left a trail.”  Jack was standing a bit further off, looking down at the ground.  He pointed to several dark drops of blood, visible on the pavement, and looked back at them.  “If he doesn’t heal himself, we can follow it.”

That was a convenient stroke of luck, and they should have known it wouldn’t hold out longer than the end of the street.  They were standing there, considering their next step, when they were interrupted.

“You know you assholes can just use a tracker spell, yeah?”  Gabriel’s voice rang out, loud and obnoxious, as he dipped his finger in one of the drops of blood.  “Seriously.  Are you guys actually idiots?  How are you not dead already?”

“A lot of luck,” Sam said dryly.  “I thought you were sleeping.”

Gabriel shrugged.  “You guys think loudly.  Kept me up.”  He glanced over at Jack quizzically.  “Plus, that kid glows like a lighthouse even through walls.  So it’s kinda hard to take a good nap.”

“So do the spell,” Castiel said shortly, not particularly interested in conversation.

“Sheesh.”  Gabriel rolled his eyes.  “Anyone have chalk?”

“We have spray paint,” Jack said, up on his toes in his eagerness to help. 

Gabriel considered it.  “No, I like chalk.  More old school.  Who wants to run to Walmart with me?”

“There’s no time,” Sam said, taking point.  This had gone beyond Jack’s abilities, even if it had started out as his case.  “Will paint work?”

“I guess.”  Gabriel made a face at him.  “But get ready to get a ticky for graffiti.”

Sam wasn’t worried about that.  He was already striding back to the motel, followed closely by Jack.  Castiel remained with Gabriel, watching him closely.  “You’re sure this will work?” he asked after a moment.

Gabriel was watching Sam walk away, but he looked back at Castiel when he spoke.  “Yeah.  I know my rune magic, Cassie.  It’ll find your lover boy lickety-split.”

“He is not my lover.”

Gabriel moved, gracefully sitting down on the curb.  “Uh huh, sure.  That’s why it’s got your panties all in a knot, is it?  No worries, Cassie.  The best of us have fallen for humans at least a few times.  They’re fun.  All their little feelings and beliefs.  Makes you feel alive.”

Castiel watched him a moment, but the archangel wasn’t doing anything.  He was simply sitting, head tilted slightly upwards like he was looking at the stars, though there were only one or two pinpoints of light sporadically visible between the clouds.  “Why are you helping?” He finally asked, when Gabriel wasn’t forthcoming with any more information.

The archangel glanced over, and shrugged.  His grace was weak, flowing in the blood of his vessel.  He needed to return to Heaven to energize himself, or he would be weak for a long time.  Castiel realized, with a jolt, that in that moment he was stronger than Gabriel.  He was stronger than the archangel.

“Gabriel,” he said, voice harsher than he meant (not that he particularly cared).  “What is your motivation here?”

Gabriel drew in a long breath at the direct question, running his fingers through his hair.  “I don’t have motivations,” he said, letting his head drop backwards.  “I’m just the trickster.  You guys were running around out here like decapitated chickens, so I popped out to help.  Stuff isn’t always as complicated as you think it is.”

“It’s always complicated when you’re involved.”  Castiel stood, studying the archangel.  “You lied to us for ages.  How long were you allied with the pagans, without Heaven’s knowledge?”

He groaned, leaning backwards.  “Fuck, Cassie, right to the point, aren’t we?  Look, I’ve already maxed out my deep past conversations for one day.  Heaven sucked for me.  I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

“We relied on you, Gabriel-”

“Yeah, well, a lot of people relied on me.”  Gabriel shot a glare up his way.  “Maybe they should learn that I’m not someone to be relied on.”  He looked over at the sound of footsteps, and hopped back up to his feet.  “Got the paint, Sammich?”

Sam and Jack were both carrying cans of red spray paint back from the motel room.  Castiel fixed Gabriel with a dark look, letting his grace roughly brush the elder angel’s- the conversation was not over, and he did not trust the trickster.  Gabriel glanced over, eyes dark.  He got the memo.

“Will this work?”  Jack had missed the entire exchange.  He darted forward to hold out the spray paint to Gabriel, looking up at the archangel, eyes big, eager to please.

Gabriel tousled his hair and took the can.  “Good enough for me.  Now gimme a minute to draw the thing.”  He flipped the can in his hand and stepped out into the middle of the intersection.  “Alrighty,” he said, turning in a random direction.  “Fuck off, demon.  My crossroad now.”

Nothing happened for a second, and Gabriel held up a hand, fingers poised to snap. 

One of the shadows moved where he was looking, deepening for a moment, before returning to normal.  The breeze carried the faintest hint of sulfur, before it was gone.

“Better,” Gabriel said, and turned a circle, judging the pavement, before kneeling down and beginning to draw. 

There was silence.  Jack moved closer to Castiel, trying to figure out why his father figure was so tense all of a sudden.  He wanted to ask why he couldn’t see Gabriel’s wings.  He could see everyone else’s.  Raphael’s had been brilliant, electrified.  Castiel’s were sleek and functional, all smooth, aerodynamic lines.  Even Fenrir seemed to have wings, though they weren’t so much a form as a blurring of energy. 

But Gabriel had nothing.  Jack looked at him, and he saw only a lowly pagan.  Nothing special.  A demigod at most.  His energy sparked wild, almost feral, but it was weak.  Broken.  If nobody had told him that this was Gabriel, then he would have had no idea, and he wanted the backstory. 

However, Castiel was not looking at him, and Sam seemed distracted, moving closer to Gabriel.  Jack huffed.  He’d have to be patient and ask someone later, when they weren’t on a case.

“Are you good to do this?” Sam’s voice was quiet as he stepped closer to Gabriel, slow, like he were approaching an animal that might get spooked.  “You seemed off last time we spoke-”

“I’m fine.”  Gabriel’s voice was a quick, firm whisper.  His eyes flicked over to Castiel and Jack to make sure they weren’t listening, and then he looked back at the runes he was sketching.  He was moving fast, as quick as though he were writing in English.  Sam supposed they came second nature to the god of tricks and magic. 

“What language is that?” Sam asked, kneeling down next to Gabriel.  He’d seen the runes in books, but he wasn’t sure what the circle was for.  It looked more like it was for summoning than tracking. 

Gabriel reached over to rub paint off his fingers onto Sam’s pant leg.  “We’ll talk,” he said, ignoring the conversation starter.  “Because whatever this is between us, I don’t want it to go on too long.”  He hesitated, sitting back on his heels as he looked down at his runes.  The streetlight illumination turned his hair to a flat gold.  “Trust me.  I’ve got too much going on right now to be watching out for you too.”

Sam smiled slightly.  “I didn’t say anything about you watching out for me.”

Gabriel blinked, glancing over, one eyebrow quirked up slightly in a question.  His lips were slightly parted like he was going to say something.  Sam felt like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff, and if he fell, there was no accounting how far away the ground was.  His stomach lurched slightly at the thought. 

“Good,” Gabriel said, looking back down at his runes. “Good.  That’ll make this easier.”

“What is _this_?”  Sam made a vague gesture between them.  “Sharing dreams isn’t exactly a habit-”

“Dunno.”  Gabriel quirked an eyebrow, glancing back at Sam.  “Like I said, I’m not doing anything.  Just don’t die before we figure it out, because if something linked us, I don’t want to die too.”

“Thanks,” Sam said dryly.  “Can I help with this?”  He gestured at the circle.

Gabriel smirked slightly, and pushed the can of spray paint into Sam’s hand, deliberately letting their fingers brush.  The warmth sent sparks up Sam’s arm.  “Nope,” Gabriel said.  “I’m finished.  C’mon.” He stood and gestured for Castiel and Jack to come closer.  “Okay, kiddos, who wants to track a bad guy?”

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeez I got no idea how this turned out. trigger warnings for mild panic attacks caused by grief and lack of alcohol (I say mild cause I googled it and oh my goodness some people have panic attacks so violent I am so sorry), and also rape references from mythology concerning loki and swardlsdgksdfansd idk how to spell that horse's name still

_The circus_

There was a group of trailers in the back where they kept the animals, downwind from the rest of the camp.  A girl was washing down a show horse in the front, illuminated by the lights of the trailer, singing softly as she worked, and the horse watched her, occasionally taking ahold of a mouthful of her hair.  One door was open, and two other horses nickered at each other.  Another trailer was closed, but there were old paintings of lions and tigers on the sides, suggesting what lived within. 

The third trailer looked more promising.  Jenny took a few steps towards it, then paused and took a deep breath.  The doors were closed, and the only windows were the slots near the ceiling for air flow.  There was a dead body in there- the boy from the haunted house.  Jenny didn’t do well with dead bodies.  They were just… they were dead.  

But she didn’t have a choice.  If the real makeup artist was in the prison trailer, then she needed his help if she wanted to escape.  She hoped he wouldn’t be too angry that she’d stolen his job.  Obviously she didn’t want it.  He could help it, if he helped her escape. 

She slipped up closer to the door, and then pressed her fingers against it.  The latch was cold in the night.  The girl washing the horse was paying no attention.  “C’mon, Jenny,” she whispered to herself.  “You’ve got this.” 

Before she could chicken out, she pushed the door open. 

The smell hit her first, and she almost backed out, gagging.  The horse being washed reared and whinnied angrily. 

“Hey, close that!” the horse girl shouted.  “They haven’t dumped the body yet.”

Jenny swallowed hard.  “Um… sorry,” she called, and then stepped in, closing the door behind her.  Inside, in the dark, the smell was so bad that it made her eyes water. 

“Oh, good,” said a man’s voice from one of the cells.  “Someone remember that we were here?”

Jenny froze.  “Um…”  She walked over to the cell, and then backed up a step.  The man was far too broad and tall to be the skinny little makeup artist, though she couldn’t make out any details in the dark.  “I was wondering…”

There was silence for a minute, and then the man moved closer to the bars.  “You here to bring us dinner, or just stand there and look confused?” 

She shook herself.  “Um… no… I mean, she didn’t send me.  Loretta didn’t.  I sent myself.  To, um… I want to escape.  And there’s-”

“Hold up- you’re that girl who stole my job!”  A boy slammed into the bars on the opposite side, and Jenny jumped and whirled around.

“I know, I know.  I’m sorry.”  She licked her lips and tried to look suitably remorseful, but that was hard when she was scared out of her mind.  “I don’t want to work here.  You can have it back.  I just need-”

“The blood,” the man said, and Jenny whirled around again. 

“Yeah,” she said, nodding.  “You guys know about it?”

“Name’s Dean Winchester,” the man said, sticking a hand through the bars.  “I’m here to save you.”

Jenny shook his hands through the bars, ignoring the dried blood that flaked off from his hand.  “I’m Jenny.  Um… how are you gonna rescue me when you’re locked up?”

“Kinda figured you nicked a key.”  Dean sighed, giving the bars a halfhearted shake.  They didn’t give.  “That’s fine.”

“You’re trying to escape?”  The makeup artist on the other side eyeballed her.  “So you can be our person on the outside?”

“Um… yeah… I guess.”  Jenny looked between them.  “I just don’t know how.  I was gonna ask you.”

Noah gestured.  “Well listen to him.  This guy, Dean Winchester?  He saved the world, like, multiple times.  He knows how to deal with this.”

“Oh.”  Jenny doubted that, but denying it seemed unwise, since these two strangers were her only allies.  Besides Carter, but she didn’t know if Carter was really on her side.  She hoped that he was on her side.  “Saved the world?  I guess I didn’t know it needed saving…”

Dean shook his head.  “We didn’t do that much.  We just-”

“He defeated Satan,” Noah said, gazing over at Dean.  “He and his brother single handedly defeated Satan when he tried to destroy the world.”

“Well… that’s not exactly how it went down.”  Dean shook his head, shrugging a little.  “Lucifer’s kind of hard to get rid of.  He’s in another universe now.  For who knows how long.”  He rolled his eyes at that, like Lucifer, Prince of Hell, was an inconvenience.  “Basically, Lucifer isn’t the problem here.  What we need you to do is get the key to these cages.  Then we can grab the blood, and all three of us can get out.”

“Oh.”  Jenny nodded.  “Yeah… um, I thought I would be getting the blood…”

“The blood will be under guard,” Dean said, shaking his head.  “The key will be a little easier.  Not much, but there’s not really a choice.  You think you’re up for it?”

No.  Not at all.  “Yeah.  I can make it work,” she said, nodding vehemently.  “I need to get out of here.  You’re sure you can get the blood if I get you out of here?”

“He defeated Satan,” Noah repeated, in case Jenny had missed it the first time.  “He can defeat Loretta.”

Jenny nodded.  “Okay.  Okay.  I still don’t know about the Satan thing, but… who has the key?”

 

_Back with our dear heroes_

Gabriel stood in the center of the circle, hands clasped at his chest like he was praying.  He’d shooed everyone a few feet away, and now the runes were starting to glow.  The air tasted slightly of ozone.  Sam leaned over towards Castiel.  “Is this an angel ritual, or-”

“It isn’t,” Castiel said bluntly, eyes fixed on Gabriel.  “I have no idea what he’s doing.  Showing off, probably.”

It was certainly a possibility.  The runes were glowing now, brighter than the weak streetlights.  They cast a low gold light over Gabriel, throwing his face into shadow.  His hair fell in soft curls around his face.  It made him look younger, Sam thought.  Or, he supposed, it made his vessel look younger.  The archangel inside was older than the world itself.  Older than the universe even. 

What did he know?  What had he seen?  He was a greater force than even-

“A’ite, done!”  Gabriel turned on his heel, and the glow of the runes died.  “Now watch.  This is the fun tracker spell.”  He threw his hands out, and the circle glowed again.  Light shot into the center of the circle, under Gabriel’s feet, like the spokes of a glowing bicycle wheel, and then the center of light shifted, pulling the beams outwards, until they formed a glowing road, showing the way forward into the night.

“Yellow brick road, amirite?”  Gabriel grinned at them.  “I do good?”

Castiel ignored the request for complements and started off, stalking down the glowing path without a single word of thanks.   Jack glanced up at Sam, and then darted off behind Castiel. 

“That’s really helpful,” Sam said as he started following them.  “Thanks, Gabe.”  He paused.  “Are you coming?”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, still standing in the center of the circle.  “You think I want to go on your rescue mission?”

“Well-”

“I want to take a nap,” he said, pouting.  “I tracked your guy for you.  The path will stay there for an hour.  Go save Deano.”

“Gabe-”

“Sam.”  Gabriel stepped out of the circle to touch his arm.  His fingers were cold even through Sam’s sleeve.  “I helped.  Okay?  Good guy now, or whatever.”  He made a face.  “Trust me, it was enough to make me want to throw up in my mouth.  So you…” He threw his arms towards the glowing path.  “Go save your bro.  And I’m going to take a nap.  Then maybe make some calls.  Although, I haven’t decided that part yet.  I might keep letting people think I’m dead until I got more of my mojo back.”

Sam let out a breath.  “Don’t leave.”

“What?” Gabriel tilted his head at that.

“Don’t leave,” Sam repeated, fixing Gabriel with a glare.  “I know you, Gabe.  You run off all the time, and I can’t find you if you run.  So this is me asking you not to go.  Here.”  He fished the room key out of his pocket.  “If you need a place, hang out there.”

Gabriel obediently held out a hand.  “Where’s this sudden comradery coming from?”

Sam dropped the key into his hand.  “You chose us- humanity- against your brother, Gabe.  So on behalf of humanity, I-”

“Cool it.”  Gabriel’s eyebrow quirked up.  “Don’t make some excuse about the behalfs of humanity.  Just admit, you think I’m hot and you want me to stick around.”

Sam made a defiant noise. 

“Hush,” Gabriel said, pressing his finger to Sam’s lips.  “Right now, you guys are basically one in a handful people that know I’m back, and I want to keep that number small.  So I’ll stick around.  But bring up my brother again, and I will slice you open stem to stern and use your intestines as a jump rope, kapeesh?” 

Sam blinked.  “Um, yeah.  Kapeesh.”

“And I hate cardio, so it’ll suck for both of us.”  Gabriel patted Sam’s cheek and turned sharply, heading towards the motel.  “Don’t make me do cardio, Sammy.  Or this beautiful ass will be gone forever.”  He did a little wiggle, grinning, and then headed back towards the motel before Sam could answer, or get the image out of his head. 

Because he definitely didn’t need to be distracted by the idea of Gabriel’s ass when he was going to rescue Dean.  Because now he wasn’t sure if he was thinking about a blond man or a dark haired girl from a thousand years ago, and he didn’t need to be thinking about either because both had those laughing golden eyes, like when he was a kid and Bobby would stand by the window with a crystal glass of whiskey, swirling it while he considered a tough hunt-

“Sam!”  Castiel’s voice was harsh.  “Dean is in danger.”

Sam jumped, then started after them.  “Yeah.  I’m coming.  Let’s go.”

 

_Heaven_

“Has anybody had any luck in locating the Nephilim?”  Zadkiel looked at the squadron standing in front of you.  “All of you were on Earth, and not one of you could find him?”

“Sir,” said the first angel, stepping forward.  “He appears to be shielded as to remain outside our influence.  I am no expert, but it seems like Winchester involvement.”

“That’s impossible,” Zadkiel said, shaking his head.  “Castiel is dead, and he was their link to Heaven.  Without Castiel, they’re just a couple humans.  Now, if I were you-”

“Respectfully,” the soldier interrupted, “they’re more than a couple of humans.  Dean Winchester is the Righteous Man, and Sam Winchester is the Boy with Demon Blood.”

“Man with Demon Blood,” corrected the soldier standing next to him.  “Aye, what a man.”  She fanned herself dramatically.  Her feather tips flared a moment in excitement.  Then she glanced around, defensively.  “He helped me with a case when he had no soul,” she said, a bit defensively.  “And yes, I called you all, but none of you were free.  The point is, he is more than human.  Do not underestimate him.”

“Okay, noted,” Zadkiel said.  He wasn’t too proud to admit the soldiers had more experience than him when dealing with Earthly warriors.  “Can we negotiate with them?  Are they beyond reason?  We’re not trying to kill the boy, so I don’t see why there would be an issue.”

There was an awkward shuffle within the squadron.  “They are enemies of Heaven,” the first soldier said, a bit awkwardly.  “There was some business between Naomi and Castiel, and later with Gadreel’s escape… they would not trust us.”  He added, under his breath, “Frankly, _I_ do not trust us.”

Zadkiel ignored the mutter.  “So we must find the boy, and convince him to return to us.  Perhaps-”

The air in the room crackled.  The doors slammed open.  Everybody turned.  Several mouths hung open.

Silence hung in a thick cloud, broken only by the stern click of heeled footsteps walking down the hall.  “Is this,” Raphael said, pausing in the center of the room, “what is left of Heaven’s council?”

Zadkiel made a noise like a broken chew toy, and scampered off the dais, falling to his knees.  He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.  His wings folded tight to his back, and he was small, no threat.

Silence hung like the blade of the guillotine, threatening to fall at any moment.  Raphael’s eyes were dark, unreadable.  Zadkiel waited to die for his insolence, staring at the marble beneath his knees.  A black vein ran through the white stone, a river of darkness that his grace would follow into whatever afterlife was granted to the angels.

And then there was a hand on his shoulder, and the archangel was pulling him to his feet.  “You are in charge now?” she asked, tilting his head up to look him in the eyes. 

He nodded.  The mouth of his vessel was too dry to speak.  Raphael’s grace crackled around him, infinite power, ancient and omniscient.  He had never been close to an archangel before, except a few times, ages ago, to Gabriel.  And Gabriel had shielded his power, most times, had spent more time cracking jokes than doing archangel business, and Raphael was fully archangel business.  Six wings, crackling up and down with lightning, hung poised in the air. 

“Good,” she finally said, releasing his chin and stepping backwards.  “Perhaps a former guardian angel will have the practical skill to be of use.”  She turned, facing the group, and hesitated for a second so swift that Zadkiel wondered if he’d imagined it. 

“I am aware,” she said, “that none of you supported me in my struggle with Castiel.”

She was greeted by stares and silence.  That didn’t faze her.  “Castiel was a valiant rival, and an honorable angel, but he chose Earth and humanity over leading his soldiers.  Heaven has been weakened.  Metatron, the scribe of our Father, betrayed you.  Now I am here to re-”

She didn’t even move as the seraph blade, thrown by an expert hand, entered her chest.  It was only a moment later, when the pain hit, that she closed her eyes.  “I see,” she said, simply, and this time, she did not fight, but slipped down to her knees.  Blood dripped from the blade, staining the white of her blouse. 

The moment hung.  She could fight.  She could vaporize the angel who had dared to wound her without batting an eye.  She could slaughter everybody in the room, rebuild Heaven in her own image. 

“You have made your decision then,” she said, and gripped the handle of the blade, now slick with her vessel’s blood.  It came out easily, in a river of red and silvery grace that soaked her front before she’d had a moment to heal.  “Too much of Heaven’s blood has been shed,” she said, looking at the blade, and then set it on the ground.  Metal clinking against marble echoed through the hall. 

“I am not my father,” she said, standing.  Already, her vessel was healing.  “I will not abandon you.  Should you call me, I will return.” 

Without another word, she turned from the hall, and as she walked, the only sound was the sound of her heels.  The puddle of archangel blood slowly spread on the floor, a stain on the marble. 

The doors closing behind her were oddly final.  Zadkiel’s breath hitched as it occurred to him that he was still alive. 

As Raphael retreated through the halls of Heaven, for the first time in her life, she felt a burning behind her eyes.  Her people were dead.  Castiel had slaughtered them, under the influence of the leviathans, and Heaven, her home, had rejected her fully.  A thirty second interaction had changed the course of nature itself.  And now, for the first time in her existence, she had nowhere to go.

 

_Brentwood- at the circus_

There were three keys to the cell.  One was kept by Loretta, one by Emmett, and one by Anthony.  Anthony and Emmett were both heavy drinkers according to Noah, so they’d probably be out of commission by now.  It wouldn’t be too hard for her to get them to do what she wanted, as long as she played her cards right, and didn’t get too cocky.  They kept the rings of keys on a retractable chain, so all Jenny would have to do was get close enough to cut it.  She’d protested that she didn’t have a knife, and found that Dean was sliding a pocket knife through the bars of the wall.  She wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it from. She wasn’t sure that she cared.  She put it into her own pocket.

“Get the keys, and get back here as fast as you can,” Dean said.  “If there’s any danger, get out of there.  My brother will figure out where I am soon, and we’ll have help.”

“Should we wait for your brother?” Jenny asked, eyes wide.  If they had back up, even one other man, then there was a better chance.

“Do you have a phone?” Dean shook his head.  “If you can get ahold of a phone, bring it here and we’ll call him.  Then we can- holy fuck!”

“Heya, Deano.”

Jenny almost screamed when someone randomly appeared in the cage- literally, randomly appeared!  He literally was not even there before, and then she blinked, and this man just appeared.  He was the most average looking person she’d ever seen, and he had his arms draped around Dean’s shoulders like they were old friends. 

Dean opened and closed his mouth once.  “Honestly,” he said after a moment, “as soon as Sam said you were alive, I figured you’d show up.  Come to kill me?”

Jenny squeaked at that.

The man patted Dean’s face and then stepped through the bars, shimmering with static as he did, like someone had misadjusted the bunny ears on the TV.  Jenny danced backwards, mouth open.  This was not happening.  Everything else could be explained, but a literal ghost-

“If I were gonna kill you, you wouldn’t remember this,” the man said, and sniffed disdainfully.  “Why’s it smell like corpse in here?  Thought you woulda learned to shower since I died.”

Dean ran a hand down his face.  “Does Sam know you’re back?”

“Yeah, he’ll be by in a few minutes.  He and Cassie are tracking the crazy killer clown.  You shoulda seen Sammy scream at that- hah!  Made my night.  And I’ve been having a pretty crappy night, so that’s impressive.”  He turned to look at Jenny, tilting his head as he studied her a moment.  “This your new hunting buddy?  You guys sure start them young, huh?  What are you, thirteen?”

“Sixteen,” Jenny said, automatically.

“Ooh, you can drive!”  The hyperactive ghost slapped her on the arm.  “How is it?  Wind in your hair, open roads ahead of you…?”

“I think you’re scaring her,” Dean said. 

“No, I’m fine,” Jenny said politely, because her brain was close to short circuiting and she didn’t know what else to say.

“Um,” said Noah, whom had been forgotten.  “Who is this?”

Dean opened his mouth, but the newcomer answered first.  “Sorry about that, my dear prisoner.  Loki Laufeyson, at your service.”  He bowed.  “Actually, more at Dean’s service over here, but you’re hotter, so…”

Noah blinked, glancing over at Dean.  “Wait, like, the Loki?”

“Yes, _the_ Loki,” he said, eyebrows quirking in offense that anyone would dare think he wasn’t _the_ Loki.  But he didn’t look like Tom Hiddleston, and Jenny didn’t believe in any of this, and he shouldn’t be able to walk through walls-

Noah glanced between Dean and Loki.  “Like, the Loki that killed Loretta ages ago?”

Loki paused, brow creased.  “Who?”

“Demon Harley Quinn,” Dean filled in.  “Mouth all gashed up like the Joker.  Ring a bell?”

“Oh!”  Loki nodded.  “Yeah, yeah, I killed her ages ago.  Forgot about that.  Why, did she come back?  Ouch.  She was a piece of work, her and that dude who ran the place.”

“What dude?” Noah narrowed his eyes.  “There’s no dude.”

Jenny ran her hands down her face.  “Can somebody please fill me in?  I don’t know what’s going on here…” she trailed off when everybody looked at her, and took a shaky breath.  “Am I still getting the keys?”

“What key?” Loki asked, looking over at Dean.

Dean took a long, slow breath.  “I really, have no idea why Sam got excited that you came back.  Look in front of you…”  He made an obvious gesture towards the lock on the cell door. 

“Oh,” Loki said.  “Well I could unlock that for you.”

Dean nodded, and waited for him to do just that.

“Oh,” Loki said, when he realized that now all the attention was on him.  “Actually, my mojo is kinda weak right now, and I don’t want to _deus ex machina_ all the fun away you guys’ hunt.”  He patted Dean’s cheek.  “The power to unlock this cage is _inside you_.”  He nodded, eyes big and meaningful, like a yoga teacher or a philosopher.  “The only way to unlock the literal cage, is to unlock the cage of your heart.  Mmhmm.  You have to admit that you love Castiel.”

Dean’s breath hitched, and he looked away.  “Stop it,” he whispered.  “That’s not funny, he’s…”

Loki held up a finger.  “Oh.  Oh, you still think he’s dead.  You’re in for a treat.  Excuse me, kiddo.”  He moved past Jenny towards the door.  “Anyways, glad you’re alive.  Sam was just making those big eyes at me when I said I wasn’t helping with the case, and I hate those big eyes.”  He made a face.  “So I’m going to tell him that you’re alive, and then I’m _finally_ going to take a nap.”

“Gabe, what the hell?  You useless-”

Whatever expletive Dean used to describe Loki was lost in the slam of the door. 

Jenny opened and closed her mouth. 

“I hate that guy,” Dean said bluntly.  His hands were shaking, despite gripping the bars. 

“Am I getting the keys then?”  Jenny looked between the closed door and the cages with Noah and Dean. 

“Yes,” Dean said through his teeth, glaring at the door.

 

_Somewhere in the center of Brentwood_

“We should have taken the car,” Castiel said as they walked along the glowing trail.  It appeared that they were the only ones who could see it- several cars had driven right over it without blinking an eye.  “How long away is this place?”  Castiel trudged alongside Sam, apparently deciding to exercise his human right to gripe about a hike.  “We only have an hour until this trail vanishes, and Dean is in danger.”

“Dean, actually, is not in danger.”

Everybody stopped and turned to find Gabriel leaning against a tree, looking smug.

“Yeah,” the archangel said, nodding.  “I went to check on him.  That’s a bonus for being a good guy, right?”

Castiel was next to Gabriel a moment later, jaw clenched.  “He is safe?”

Gabriel gently pressed a hand against Castiel’s chest and pushed him out of his personal space.  “Safe?  Eh, that’s a really subjective word, dontcha think?  Look, guys, I’ve done you a favor.  If Dean were dead, there would be no point to this little hunt.  But he’s alive, so there is-”

“C’mon, Gabe.”  Sam grabbed the archangel’s arm and started walking.  “If you’re not going to take a nap, you can come with us.”

Jack trotted along behind them.  “Can I see your wings?”

“Easy there, Gigantor,” Gabriel complained, trying to pull his arm back.  “I was just confirming Dean’s living status for you.  That was a completely unasked for favor.  I’m helpful.  Plus, my grace really is wonked up now, and I really do want a nap.”

“Then you should have thought of that before,” Sam said.  He stopped, and turned sharply to look at Gabriel.  “Are you with us?”

“What?” Gabriel quirked an eyebrow.  “You’re getting real close there, Sasquatch.  Almost like you wanna kiss-”

“Gabriel.”  Castiel leaned in close as well, and Gabriel tried to move backwards, away from the two men, but Sam’s fist was twisted in the fabric of his shirt.  “Dean is in danger, and you’re treating this as a joke.”

“Kids were taken, Gabe,” Sam said, gritting his teeth.  “They might be dead.  We’re trying to save them if they’re not, and prevent other kids from being taken if they are.  So could you stop joking around?  Either help us, or go to bed.  Do you hear me?”

Gabriel’s eyes flicked between them.  “C’mon,” he said, dropping his head back.  “You guys see yourselves?  You’re all so manly and gung-ho.  Do your throats hurt from doing the Batman voice all the time?”

Sam let out a slow breath, and let go of Gabriel’s shirt, letting him dance away.  “Fine,” he said.  “Go take your nap.”

Gabriel opened his mouth, and Sam’s eyes narrowed.  “Don’t, Gabriel.  This is serious.”

“Fine.”  Gabriel pouted, and then darted over to walk beside Sam.  “Super serious.  I am _dead_ serious.  I’m serious as your mother’s-”

“My mother is trapped in a parallel dimension with your brother,” Sam said, walking forward along the trail again.  “So thanks for that.”

Gabriel blinked, silent, as they continued walking.  Jack hesitated, glancing back at him, but Sam nudged him and he turned around too, like they were simply going to leave him behind.  Gabriel licked his lips, glancing around.  The street was dark and empty, this late at night (or possibly this early in the morning).  And now Sam was pissed.

Actually, he was so pissed that Gabriel could feel it through the stupid bond thing.  He frowned, tilting his head.  Was it- he could!  It helped that Sam didn’t know the first thing about shielding his thoughts, and it was very faint, slippery like a fish, but Gabriel could definitely sense something there.  A very definite aura of pissed-off-ness.

Interesting.  And definitely no good, because bonds like that hurt when they broke, and bonds with humans were liable to snap with the slightest force, like the human in question getting itself killed.  Better to break it with control. 

Though how it formed in the first place was the real question. 

Lucifer’s son looked back at him again, and Gabriel waved cheerfully.  He didn’t follow them down the glowing path.  That was what they wanted, after all, and he really had no interest in the hunt.  Although, even a hunt was more interesting than laying in the dark, replaying the Empty’s words over and over and over _ad nauseam_ until he wanted to scream.

Everything was his fault.

He shoved the thought from his head, taking a breath.  No, much better to think about what this bond with Sam meant instead.  He could sleep later.  Preferably, with the lights on and the TV blaring loud enough to drown out his dreams. 

Despite his pride, he spread his invisible wings and reappeared a few feet in front of the motley crew, falling into step beside Jack.  “So, kid,” he said, elbowing one of the fluffed wings.  “We’re gonna learn you a neat trick, called how to make Skittles appear out of thin air for Uncle Loki.” 

 

_Back at the circus_

As soon as Jenny left, Dean slid down against the back wall, taking a shuddering breath through his hands.  All it had taken was Gabriel mentioning the name, to throw him off.  Castiel was still gone.

The ground was cold beneath him, but Dean felt like he was falling.  He couldn’t breath- couldn’t think.  He could just hear Gabriel’s voice, flippant and casual. 

_Admit that you love Castiel._

The air was thick and rotten around him, heavy, like a brick on his chest, and Castiel wasn’t there.  Castiel was dead.  Castiel was dead, and there was no bringing him back, and Dean wanted to scream, but he couldn’t breath-

“Hey man.”

He ignored the voice, dragging his fingers down his face.  His breath shuddered, shallow and rank, gagging him each time he tried to draw in air, and it didn’t matter if he suffocated, because Castiel was dead.  Castiel had been stabbed by an archangel blade, and he was gone, and Dean was dry heaving now, choking on the dead air, and he couldn’t breathe-

“Dean!”

He gasped, dragging his fingers through his hair.  There was a weight bearing down on him, crushing his ribs, and just the name, the stupid name- Castiel- made it worse, like it was tightening-

“Hey hey hey hey.”  Noah was crouching next to the bars on the other side of the trailer, holding a hand out into the aisle.  “Breathe with me, okay?  In… out… c’mon, Dean.  Look at me.  It’s okay.  You’re okay.”

Dean shuddered, closing his eyes.  The heavy, rotten air pressed down on him, crushing him in darkness and death, and he didn’t want to be here.  He wanted to be gone, to be dead, to be back in Purgatory fighting alongside-

“Stay with me, Dean.”  Noah’s voice was calm and firm, an anchor.  “That guy’s a dick, alright?  You’re okay. Your brother’s coming, remember?  It’s all gonna be fine.  Just breathe.”

He took a shuddering gulp of air, then stood, shaky, grabbing the wall for support, and leaned up next to an opening, where cool night air drifted lazily by.  The stars were out- he could see a tiny circle of them if he looked.  Slowly, too slowly, the invisible weight lifted from his chest, leaving him feeling drained and empty.  Ignoring his cellmate, he leaned his forehead against the cool of the wall, closing his eyes. 

“Panic attacks, man.  They suck.”  Noah let out an awkward little laugh, but Dean ignored him, focused on his breathing, counting each time that his lungs expanded and deflated. 

“I need a beer,” he finally said, his voice rough in the trailer. 

Noah made a relieved noise when he spoke sinking down against his own wall.  “When we get out of this, first round’s on me.”

Dean ignored him, trying not to think.  He hated this, being locked up, waiting for a frightened girl to do a hunter’s work of stealing the key.  His thoughts were too loud.  Castiel’s absence was too loud, too glaring. 

Outside, water splashed, and a horse nickered softly.  Somewhere, there was a shooting star, but it was outside Dean’s line of sight.

 

_The darkest pit in Hell_

The Cage was broken.  Perhaps a crew of angelic craftsmen could fix it, but nobody was truly interested in fixing it.  It had taken quite a beating in the last few years, and though it was still functional, Raphael wasn’t surprised that Lucifer had gotten out again so quickly. 

“Michael?”  Her voice was so small that it was unrecognizable to even herself.  “Michael, it’s Raphael.”  She reached out for the door. 

The seals still technically needed to be broken to open it, but Raphael was at full power, and the Cage was weakened.  It only took a bit of straining, and the door flew off, hitting the wall of the cavern and falling to the ground to shimmer and vanish.

And a flurry of grace and wings slammed into Raphael, rolling them both backwards.  Clawed fingers dug into her vessel, and she threw a punch.  Her fist connected with the base of a wing, and suddenly Michael was across the room, curled with his back to her, wings wrapped around himself. 

“Michael?”  Raphael stepped forward, hands held out in peace.  “It’s me.  You know me.”

He was silent, fingers digging into his hair.  His clothes were ragged.  Dirt and blood smeared his skin and feathers.  He had lost control so completely that his wings were on the material plane, the feathers dull and ragged.  “Michael.” Raphael crooned, slipping down to her knees again for the second time during the hour. 

There was no response.  His feathers quivered as he cowered across the room from her, and Raphael slipped backwards to sit on the hot stone, dropping her head to her hands.  There was nobody here to see her composure drop. 

“Heaven’s fallen,” she said, voice flat and empty.  “Heaven has fallen and I don’t know how to fix it.”

The elder archangel still did not respond.  Raphael didn’t expect him to.  “Everybody loyal to me is dead,” she said to the creature who had once been Heaven’s proudest warrior.  “Everybody.  Castiel slaughtered them all.  The angels remaining don’t want me… I know that should not be an issue, but…” She shook her head.  “I never had to force them to remain under my rule.  They were loyal to me, to you, to Father, but the survivors are not.”

He didn’t even respond to her voice, hiding as he did under his ragged wings.  Feathers were missing in places, and raw flesh oozed grace and blood where he’d clawed himself.  It made Raphael’s own wings ache to see.  Somewhere, deep inside, she was still the healer, and she longed to go to him, to clean the wounds and preen the rest. 

“I’ve never had to do this alone,” she murmured, resting her head on her hands.  “You’ve always been there.  Even with Lucifer and Gabriel gone, it was you and me.  I tried to save you, when they put you down here.  I tried, but Castiel…” She closed her eyes.  “You wouldn’t even know Castiel, would you?  Not personally… he was one of Gabriel’s fledglings, stationed on Earth.”

Michael was starting to relax now, or at least, the quivering had stopped.  When she looked up, she saw the bright gleam of an eye before he looked away again, hiding himself under his wings.  She closed her eyes, remaining where she sat.  Perhaps some part of Michael had not been destroyed by the tortures of the Cage.  Perhaps, deep within his grace, he was still there.

“Ga-” Her voice broke, and she covered her mouth, horrified by her own lapse, but the burning in her eyes was back.  “Gabriel,” she repeated raggedly, “is alive.  I suppose you felt it, when Lucifer k-killed him.  But he was alive this entire time.  He left us.”  She closed her eyes, face burning.  “Our baby brother… do you remember when he was created?  He was just that little mess of feathers and laughter…”

She was silent for a long moment.  Michael’s grace was a broken beacon across the cavern from her.  He was ignoring her, preening his feathers now, though his fingers were shaking and useless. 

“He was raped,” she said bluntly, and then buried her face in her hands again.  “His child, Sleipnir… the child’s father raped Gabriel.  Our Gabriel.  He left Heaven, only to be raped and tortured, to watch his own children die, and he preferred that horror to us…”  Her breath hitched, and she looked upwards, blinking through tears.  She had never cried before.  She didn’t think it would hurt like this, burning inside and out.  “Were we so cruel?”

Michael was silent.  He was using his teeth to worry a bit of dried blood out of one of his flight feathers.  Instinct told Raphael to go to him, to help him, but she knew he would bolt, and she would never see him again. 

“He was my best friend, Michael.  He was my brother in arms, and he just left…” Her voice trailed off, and she punched the ground in a fit of fury.  Rock and skin shattered under her fist.  Michael whimpered, scampering further away.  “And now again, he chooses Earth over brotherhood.  And Heaven is fallen, and I cannot… I do not know how to fix it this time.  Michael, I need you…” Her voice rose in a keen.  “I need you, Michael, please, if any piece of you is left…”

She waited, gazing at him, for a response, but he continued to bite and claw at the clot, until the feather snapped.  Frustrated, he tore it out and threw it aside, and moved onto the next flight feather.  Raphael’s breath hitched.  “Please, brother…”

It was like he didn’t even know she was there, a bird that had been released from its cage and was content to bask in newfound freedom.  He started humming as he plucked at his wings, relaxed as long as Raphael didn’t move any closer. 

Raphael covered her mouth, a broken, human gesture.  Her voice was a whisper, a confession to a holy being that couldn’t hear her.  “I wish I were still dead, Michael, I cannot…”

She buried her face in her hands, abandoning words.  Her shoulders shook as she sat there, alone in the dark of the pit of Hell, and Michael continued humming as he preened his wings, content to be free of the tortures of the cage, oblivious to the weeping archangel a mere few yards away. 


	13. Chapter 13

_At the circus_

Jenny chewed on her lip as she slipped through the camp.  Though it was dark, action never ceased.  The girl who had been washing the horse earlier had moved onto the next one, a draft horse that was bigger than any animal had a right to be.  A few girls from the dance team were out practicing, though the combatants from earlier were notably absent. 

Jenny was suddenly worried she was going to stumble upon a dead scalped demon girl, bleeding alone in the dark.

No- they weren’t demons though?  Noah had said there were only four demons.  Maybe they were something else?  Maybe he was mistaken?

She shook her head, and kept walking.  Emmett and Anthony would be at one of the larger tents, where they would be drinking themselves in a stupor to pass the night, because demons didn’t need to sleep.  She could see it now, glowing across the field.  It was a huge tent, larger than any she’d seen outside a camping store, but it was still dwarfed by the main tent, squatting like a behemoth in the center of the field. 

She avoided the main tent.  She was not one iota curious about what was inside.  Not at all.  Another may have risked a look in to see the rings that were being set up, but Jenny had no desire to see what horrors they were preparing for tomorrow night.  She just wanted to get the key and get Dean Winchester out of that cage so he could save her.  He was clearly a more hardened individual than she, and he seemed to be her best chance at getting out alive. 

There were shouts from inside the main tent, and the sound of someone dropping something, and Jenny kept walking towards the smaller one to see if Anthony and Emmett were to be found.  She could hear music now.  Someone was playing the local pop station.  Familiar commercials for the gas station offering a free cup of coffee with every ten gallons of gas were jarring against the backdrop of being kidnapped.

The wide flap of a doorway was pinned back, and Jenny found that an entire bar had been set up within.  In fact, it was the same pop-up bar that her uncle had bought online and brought with him to beer fests.  The difference between this and the few beer fests Jenny had attended was that this wasn’t a bunch of middle aged men sitting around and throwing back beers and complaining about work.  This was a bunch of circus performers sitting around and throwing back beers while complaining about work.

After the initial shock of seeing Anthony quadruple fisting Bud Light, Jenny took a slow breath and looked around. 

“Stop, stop, stop!”  The voice was a high wail.  “Put it down!  I can’t take another- no!”

Jenny whipped around to look at the other end of the bar, where one Siamese twin was downing shots while the other lamented.  Bethany was sitting on the bar next to them, legs stretched out in front of her, nursing a beer in her remaining hand.  Someone had bandaged her shoulder.  She glanced up at the doorway.  “Hey, is that the new girl?  Get in here!  Carter was just telling us about you!”

Emmett raised his can in her direction.  “Chuckles dragged her in.”

An albino man dressed in a leotard pressed a hand to Jenny’s back and led her inside, towards the bar.  The tent was stiflingly hot, the music blaringly loud as the commercial break ended.  “Our new makeup artist!” called out the woman from the corner, who was so large she was sitting on two stools.  She raised a glass.  “Make us all look pretty.”

“Unlike the last guy,” Bethany grumbled, rolling her eyes.  She took a swig of beer and then tried to scratch at her bandages, grumbling under her breath. 

“Jenny, hey.”  Carter was suddenly there, steering Jenny towards an empty stool.  His tattooed hand was solid on her lower back.  “I thought you went to bed.  You feeling better?”  He raised an eyebrow, and there was a deeper meaning to that eyebrow raise.  It made Jenny’s body tingle.  He cared.  Right? 

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, nodding.  “I’m okay.  Um… I just wanted to… hang out.”

Carter beamed.  “Sure!  Hey, Bethany, grab her a beer!”

“Too bad my arm got ripped off,” Bethany grumbled to herself, but set her own drink down so she could reach down into the cooler on the other side and pull out another beer.  Ice clinked as she strained to grab one just out of her reach, almost fell, and then straightened up and tossed a can over.  Carter caught it out of the air and handed it to Jenny, who took it like she was taking a grenade.

There was no way she was going to announce that she had never touched a drop of alcohol in her life to these people. Awkwardly, feeling like everybody was watching her, she cracked open the can.

It was just as easy as opening a soda can.  That didn’t seem right.  It should have been harder. 

Carter held up his own can.  “Cheers to a new life.”

“Cheers,” she echoed obediently, and raised up her can to clink against his.  She winced when the entire bar echoed the toast, and then took a sip when everybody else did.

She gagged on the taste. 

Carter laughed at her pain, and patted her back.  “You get used to it,” he said. 

She nodded, vowing never to touch another drop of the beer, and wondering how adults managed to choke down multiple drinks a day. 

She found herself sitting between Carter and Anthony, holding her fingers tightly to the chilly can.  The two were talking over her, discussing show times, and some VIP who was going to show up in the audience.  Jenny wondered who the VIP was.  She tried to ask, because maybe it would be helpful for Dean to know that, but Carter just glanced at her and shook his head slightly.

Dean’s knife was heavy in her pocket.  Anthony’s keys were right there, but the man had four arms.  If she tried to grab his keys, surely one hand would grip her wrist, and he’d glare at her, and suddenly she’d find herself being torn apart by the lizard boy…

She sat there, frozen.  Carter looped an arm around her shoulder, and it was both warm and protective, and solid as iron.  Like he’d know if she tried anything.

“Try another sip,” he said with a smile, pushing the can closer to her.  “It takes a little to get used to it.  Then you’ll like it.”  He took a sip from his own can like he trying to prove that he wasn’t lying.  “Go on.”

She made a face, but took another sip.  Though, it wasn’t so much a sip as simply letting it touch her lips and hoping that he wouldn’t notice that she didn’t actually drink any.  The key was right there.

“Anyways,” Anthony continued, turning away to look at Emmett.  “We need… we need to figure out those orders…”  He waved a hand.  “The horses- you know those horses.  They’re hungry.  Because they’re so big.”  He tossed an empty can away and shook his head.  “Why do we have such big animals?  They eat so much.”

“Why are you talking about work right now?”  Emmett shook himself from where he was eyeballing Bethany’s toned legs, exposed by her short shorts.  “We’re not talking about work.  We’re getting in the mood for tomorrow’s show.  Stop talking about work.”

“But we need to talk about work,” Anthony said.  He elbowed Carter.  “This kid knows.  Without work, there’s no show.  And if we lose another horse, Loretta’s gonna be up our asses.”

Emmett hmmphed.  “She’s a bitch.  Are we sure there’s no way to overthrow her?”

“I know a way,” Jenny said, and then blinked, surprised that the words had burst out of her mouth.

Suddenly the place was silent.  Even the radio cut out.

“That’s a tall statement coming from the new kid on the block,” Emmett said, eyes narrowed.

“She’s lying,” Anthony said easily.  “Nobody can kill Loretta.  We tried, remember!”  He burst into laughter, colored with a frantic edge. 

Carter blinked, glancing between them and Jenny, but there was nothing he could say without revealing that he had been talking to her about escaping earlier.

“What about that?” Bethany tuned in, leaning forward.  “We can’t do anything here.  We’re all on a leash.”  She poked at her shoulder again.  “Can’t even get a new meat suit until she gives me permission.  It sucks.  Apparently, a one armed dancer is _interesting_.” 

“That’s… horrible,” Jenny said, blinking.  She had no idea what Bethany was talking about, but calling her ‘interesting’ for losing an arm?  “But… um… I know… I heard a story about the beginning of this place, and that she was originally killed by someone named Loki?”

Bethany looked clueless, but Emmett and Anthony froze, glancing between each other.  “Yes,” Anthony said slowly.  “That’s true…”

“I know Loki,” she said, biting her lip and looking between them.  “I met him.”  She didn’t say that he was friends with the guy Dean Winchester, because she didn’t want to put Dean in danger, but maybe, if she could meet with Dean again, he could get in touch with the strange ghost. 

There was a significant look that was shared between everyone except for the Siamese twins, who were about passed out.  Jenny felt like her stomach had dropped out from under her.  She’d put herself on the spot. 

She never put herself on the spot.

“Can you get a message to him?”  Emmett was suddenly very, very intense. 

Jenny tried to move backwards, but Carter’s arm was in the way.  He wrapped it around her slightly harder, and it was both grounding and solid as well as captivating, holding her in place so there was no way she could run.

“What message?” she asked, because what other choice was there?  She wanted to vanish, to melt away into the grassy floor beneath her stool. 

“Tell him to get his ass here,” Emmett said, eyes narrowed.  “Tell him, if he’s still all show business, that tomorrow is the night.”

 

_Loretta’s tent_

Chuckles had been gone for too long now.  Loretta didn’t like it.  Something had happened.  Of course, nothing could beat Chuckles, right?  The thing disemboweled itself for fun.  These were seasoned hunters though.  It may simply have been that Sam Winchester got a good shot in, and Chuckles had to literally pull himself together, which could take a few minutes sometimes.

But she still didn’t like it. 

This was more than a big performance tomorrow night.  This performance held their fates, though most of the performers didn’t know it. Tomorrow night could make or break the circus, and for the first time in her life, Loretta actually felt something akin to anxiety. 

Tomorrow night, they would play host to Asmodeus, the lord of Hell himself.  And if he did not enjoy the show, well… they could all pack up their immortality and expect a quick and painful trip to the bowels of Purgatory.

(Of course, Loretta had a backup plan, but she didn’t want to kill Asmodeus if she didn’t have to.  A knight of Hell could be a very useful ally.)

But then, the curtain door moved, and her worries were unfounded.  “Sam Winchester is dead?”

“Not exactly,” Chuckles said, and the story he told filled Loretta with a heavy dread. 

“Loki,” she finally said, when he finished, “is here?”

“And in league with our Winchesters,” Chuckles agreed.  “Did you want me to kill him too?”

Loretta paused, considering it.  “Perhaps,” she murmured, stepping back towards her trunk.  “We can use this to our advantage?”

Chuckles stepped forward, head tilted at an angle that could have been quizzical, and could have implied a broken neck. 

Loretta had many belongings that had been collected over the years.  Now she was looking for a certain one, one that she had gathered soon after her resurrection in this new, demonic form: a small vial of amber fluid.  It was just a few milliliters, but that was all it would take.  She held it to the light, watching it glint.  “Are the rumors true,” she asked, “that our dear old friend Loki is actually one of God’s angels?”

Chuckles shrugged.  “How should I know?  There are new rumors every day.  They say Satan knocked up a human too, but how true could that be?”

“Huh.”  Loretta swirled the vial slightly, and then held it out to Chuckles.  “Coat a blade in this.  It’s venom from the serpent bound with Loki, so long ago.  Archangel or not, it will knock him out for several hours, at least.”

“How many people you kill to get your hands on something like that?” Chuckles asked, taking the vial and twisting open the cap.  He took a whiff, straight from the opening.  A drop of blood dripped from his nostril.

Loretta simply gave him a thin lipped smile.  “Bring Loki here.  Trade Dean Winchester for him, if you must.  If he is truly an archangel, his binding will be a lovely gift for our guest tomorrow.  If he is not, then…” She smiled.  “I will have my revenge, I suppose.”

“It’s so hot when you talk dirty like that,” Chuckles said, recapping the venom.  “I’ll be back, anon.”

“Do not fail me.”  Loretta’s sweet smile was warped by her scars.

 

_Our heroes, following the glowing trail down the road_

They’d gone back for the car after half a mile, Castiel flying them back, and now Gabriel and Jack were in the back seat, facing each other while Sam drove and Castiel rode shotgun.  The path still glowed in front of them, following the road, though it was starting to fade. 

 “No, no, you gotta clear your mind.  Imagine the Skittles just being there, you know?  They’re already in your hand.  You can see them.  You can smell them.  You can literally taste them.”

Jack’s brow crinkled as he looked at his own hands.  “But they aren’t there.  I don’t know how to make them there if they aren’t… and I’ve never had Skittles.  I don’t know what they taste like.”

“You’ve never had-” Gabriel groaned.  “You’ve never had Skittles?  Oh, kiddo, we gotta change that!”  He slapped Jack on the shoulder.  “Sammy!  Make this happen for me!”

Sam ran a hand down his face.  So far, Gabriel had not once stopped talking.  Castiel’s shoulders were hunched, and despite his asking multiple times, Gabriel would not reveal where the glowing trail led.

“What you’re asking for,” Gabriel had said, the third time Castiel asked, “is called a _deus ex machina_.  ‘God from the machine.’  It was a method of storytelling used in Greek plays where the plot is made so confusing that the only way it can be solved is simply by a god coming down from the sky and magically solving the problem.”  He’d paused, head tilted.  “Usually that involved turning people into plants.  Or impregnating them against their will.  Everything gets solved by being impregnated against your will.  Usually.  The kid’s usually mucho powerful.  Sucks for mom, but what’re you gonna do?”

The lecture on ancient Greek plays had not made Castiel or Sam any less impatient, but Jack had listened very carefully, nodding.  And Gabriel, because he was a very good uncle, had promised to find a copy of _Antigone_ for the boy to read, because that was the only Greek play he’d actually read (as opposed to seeing performed on stage.  And occasionally sleeping with actors.  And, on one notable occasion, both being an actor _and_ sleeping with the actors.  Although, he didn’t really count that one, because it had been an ancient Greek themed porno and Gabriel had played Zeus.  He thought Sam would appreciate that one, because it was remarkably historically accurate, but right now Sam was still in a pissy mood, so he made a mental note to show him later.  When they were both drunk). 

Now he’d looped back around to teaching Jack his ancient birthright of completely disregarding physics, but Jack was having difficulties with that, being born of a physical woman who had been a slave to physics.  It wasn’t Jack’s fault he thought physics needed to be obeyed; it was simply the fault of his human brain.  And Gabriel vowed to destroy that part of the boy, because, frankly, it was boring as fuck, and no nephew of his was allowed to be a slave to physics.

“Okay, okay.  We can work with this.”  Gabriel tilted his head.  “What _do_ you like?”

Jack thought about it.  “Nougat,” he said, nodding seriously.  “I like nougat.”

Gabriel beamed.  “We can work with that.  Okay.  Imagine it.  Imagine the sugar.  Maybe a little chocolate involved.  Mmm, aye papi, imagine the smooth-”

“Gabriel, please find a way to describe candy that doesn’t sound like you’re filming another low budget adult movie,” Sam said through his teeth.  “Or maybe tell us when we’re going to get there.”

 “I told you, Sammy,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.  “I don’t want to take all the fun out of your case.  That’d be cruel of me.  Now, Jack Daniels, let’s focus.”  He raised his hands like he was meditating, middle fingertips pressed to thumbs, closed his eyes, and hummed.

“That is not how grace works,” Castiel said through his teeth.  He was leaning slightly forward in the seat, stiff and poised for a fight.  “That’s not how any of this works.”

“Um,” Gabriel said, without opening his eyes.  “Are you an archangel?  I think not.  So shut up and let me teach the boyo how to do magic.”

“I want to learn,” Jack said, eyes wide. 

“And learn you will,” Gabriel said, tugging lightly on one of the boy’s wings.  Jack jumped at the touch, and smiled.  “And we’re gonna start with something you already know and love, because excitement is a way better teacher than terror.  So.  Visualize it.  You have it.  You’re in charge of the nougat.”  Gabriel reached out and grabbed Jack’s hands, pulling them in front, so that his hands were cupped under the boy’s as they sat there facing each other.  “Tell the nougat to appear.  The universe is at your command, kiddo.”

Jack scrunched his eyes shut, concentrating.  “I don’t understand,” he said.  “Just make it appear? Things don’t just appear.  I read one of Sam’s old physics textbooks-”

“No!  No physics.  Don’t even think about physics.  Put it out of your brain.  Those are human rules.”  Gabriel kicked the back of Sam’s seat.  “When did you even take a physics class?”

“I needed a science credit back in school,” Sam said, glancing back at Gabriel in the mirror. 

Gabriel rolled his eyes.  “Okay, smarty pants.  Science me this.  How do I do this?”  He held up a finger, but didn’t snap, frowning as he tilted his head. 

“Do what?” Sam asked, glancing back in the mirror.  “I don’t see you doing anything.  Is your grace-”

“No, shut up.”  He twirled his hand to hold the palm towards Sam, telling him to stop.  “Someone is praying.  No, not praying.  Quite.  Just thinking about me very hard.”  He pursed his lips.  “Like, half thinking about me, half trying to call me.  It’s a very shaky connection.  Woops, it’s gone.  Huh, probably nothing important.”

Castiel closed his eyes.  “Gabriel, do you know who it was?  Or are you simply going to write off this prayer like you’ve written off so many others?”

“That stings, Cassie.  It really does.”  Gabriel sighed and closed his eyes as well, slumping back in the seat.  He was silent for a moment.  “A girl.  Nearby.  She’s friends with Dean, or at least, they know each other.  Cute little thing.  Pretty straight laced now, but when she gets to college she’s going to discover that she’s bisexual and really, really enjoys partying.  She’ll date a party girl for a while, and it will become a very serious relationship, but her girlfriend’s brother will die, and she’ll decide that she wants to fulfill the brother’s dream to see the world.  Unfortunately, the relationship won’t work long distance, and they’ll break-”

“Does any of this matter?” Sam asked, cutting him off.  “Should you really be using your power to read the future?”

Gabriel opened his eyes.  “I wasn’t reading the future.  I just made that all up.”

There was silence for a moment. 

“There was no reason to lie,” Jack said, eyebrows creased.  “Why did you lie?  You only lie when it is helping other people, and making up a story-”

“Jack,” Sam interrupted.  “Don’t ask.  Gabriel is strange.”

“Oh,” said Jack, and studied Gabriel again, squinting slightly.  “Is that why he’s still hiding his wings?”

Gabriel huffed.  “You guys all need to pull the sticks out of your asses.”  His eyes flicked towards Jack.  “Buttholes,” he corrected himself, though the pause between the curse and the not-much-better correction didn’t really make it better.  Jack looked mildly annoyed by it. 

“Maybe,” Castiel said through his teeth, before anyone else had a chance to respond, “We wouldn’t be as uptight as you say we are if you would stop acting like a childish pagan god and more like the archangel you are.”

“I _am_ a pagan god,” Gabriel said, making a face.  “Not a hunter.  I can leave.  Helping you guys is just a bonus.”

Sam set a hand on Castiel’s arm, and gave him a little look.  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.  He didn’t need Sam defending him to his friends, to Gabriel’s own brother.  It wasn’t like Sam needed to get involved- Gabriel knew exactly why Castiel was being salty with him.  But at the wordless defense, Castiel did back down, slightly, though Gabriel could still see his feathers bristling. 

“If you were going to leave,” Sam said calmly, eyes on the road, on the glowing path in front of them, “you would have left.  You could have gone off with Fenrir, or found one of your other kids, or even gone to Thor or someone.  Now, can you tell us what the prayer was really about?” He hesitated, a moment, and Gabriel thought he was going to yell or try to hit him, but instead, he forced his voice into a friendly tone.  “There’s candy in it for you if you help us.”

Ah, so the hunter was learning.  Gabriel smiled sweetly and leaned forward to pat Sam’s (perfectly toned) bicep.  “Look at you, making deals with supernatural monsters.  That’s not wise, Sammy.”  But real candy always tasted better than candy he snapped up, so he sat back in the seat.  “Fine.  There’s a girl at the circus.  Your victim.  She wants me to take out the leading lady so she can escape.  Only problem, is our bad guy is a mucho powerful demon, and I am… also mucho powerful, but still kinda wiped after that whole resurrection thing I just pulled.”  His voice took on a strained tone when he said that, like it was the most embarrassing thing ever to be lower on angelic grace than normal because he actually _died_. 

And then, because he was a good guy, he added, “and Dean’s safe, for the moment.  We have twenty-two hours until the big show, when he’s gonna be thrown in the ring for entertainment.”  He chuckled.  “My kinda entertainment.  They’re going to rip him apart.” 

Sam’s jaw tightened, and Gabriel’s laugh cut off.  Shit.  Bad joke, bad joke.  Sam was well and truly not happy with him now.  On the outside, the hunter looked calm, but through that stupid mystery bond, Gabriel could sense the whirlpool of anger and terror that swirled up at the mention of Dean’s death.  Anger and terror that Gabriel had caused.  But it had been necessary, at the time, and Sam couldn’t see that.  All Sam could see was that he was a pagan monster, something to be killed, and-

Sam’s brow furrowed slightly, and Gabriel sensed the mood change to something questioning as he glanced back at Gabriel.  “Stop that,” he said.

Gabriel blinked.  “Stop what?”

Castiel and Jack were looking between them.  The anger flared up in Sam’s mind again.  “Reading my mind.  Get out of my head.” 

“I’m not-”

The car slammed into something solid.  It spun sideways, and Sam hissed, gritting his teeth as he brought them to a stop on the side of the road.  “What was that?” he muttered, opening the door and stepping out.  “Dammit.” 

Gabriel hopped out as well, taking in the dented front grill.  “Deano’s not gonna like that,” he said mildly.

Sam shot him a bitch face that took the award for queen of all bitch faces.  “You think?  What’d we hit?  Cas, you see anything?”

Castiel was out of the car as well, frowning into the dark trees.  The only illumination was the faint glow of the fading golden path.    A chilly night breeze whispered through the branches.  The lack of bird calls set Gabriel’s feathers on edge. 

“Something’s there-” he started, and then someone punched him in the back.

Except, it couldn’t be a punch, because Gabriel was falling, and he realized with something akin to panic that he had been stabbed. 

Again.

And then the burning started, spreading outward from the wound, setting his blood on fire.

Gabriel’s scream was the only noise, but Sam whirled around, gun in hand, hammer cocked.  His heart pounded in his throat- the clown was back, and it was bleeding from its face, teeth stained read.  Gabriel was at its feet, face buried in his arms, shaking, though Sam didn’t know if it was from tears or something greater. 

The clown beamed, red teeth glinting in the headlights, and kicked Gabriel, and the archangel whimpered in a shuddery way that was even worse than the initial scream.

“What did you do?” Sam hissed, starting forward, but instantly, Chuckles was on the ground, the bloody knife pressed to Gabriel’s throat.  The archangel hissed at the contact, throwing his head back, eyes closed. 

“No!” Jack was there a moment later, even before Castiel, and the wave of energy slammed the clown to the other side of the road, where he slid into the ditch. 

A flap of wings and Castiel was there, dragging the monster up by his hair, blade pressed to his neck.  “What did you do?” he growled.

Sam threw himself to kneel at Gabriel’s side.  “It’s okay, Gabe, we got you,” he murmured, pulling off his flannel to wad it up and press it into the wound on Gabriel’s lower back, roughly the area of his kidney.  As soon as he put on the pressure, Gabriel moaned, curling in on himself, burying his face in his arms again.  “It’s okay,” Sam murmured, setting one hand on the archangel’s shoulder, using the other to apply pressure.  “It’s okay.  Look at me, Gabe.  Talk to me.”

The clown’s laugh broke through the night.  “Loki won’t be talking anytime soon,” he said, despite Castiel’s blade on his throat. “I’m here for a deal.”

“We don’t make deals with demons,” Sam growled, looking up.  “Kill it, Cas.”

Castiel’s arm tensed, but the demon clown only smirked.  “I think you’ll like this one,” he said.  “Just a simple trade.  Loki, for Dean Winchester.”

Everything froze. 

“I understand,” the clown said, like he was the most reasonable person on the planet, “that you might need to talk this out amongst yourselves.  So you have until dawn to decide.”  He grinned, and then slammed an elbow into Castiel’s stomach.  Before Castiel could regain his balance, the clown was gone, vanished into the night.

Dread swirled in the pit of Sam’s stomach, but he held pressure to the wound.  It wasn’t closing.  It just kept bleeding, and Gabriel’s breath was shuddering, small body close to seizing.  This wasn’t an ordinary stabbing, whatever it was.  Poison, probably, and Sam didn’t know what kind, or how, or if Gabriel was even still aware- “C’mon, Gabe, I need you to look at me,” he murmured, shaking the archangel’s shoulder slightly.  “Gabriel.” 

There was still no response, as he lay there on the asphalt, and Sam tried something else, that occurred to him somewhere in the waves of panic and planning.  “Loki, look at me.”

That got a response.  He didn’t look up, but one hand did move to touch Sam’s, and he tried to twist away from the pressure.  “Fuck’n hur’s,” he muttered into the pavement, and Sam let out a breath.  So Gabriel was conscious, if foggy.  That was good.

Castiel was kneeling beside him a moment later, and Sam could hear Jack hovering a few steps away, but he didn’t worry about the boy right now.  “What is this?  Cas, you gotta fix it-”

Castiel pressed a hand to Gabriel’s forehead, but his brow furrowed.  “It’s old magic,” he said softly.  “Dark, poison.”  He closed his eyes.  A moment later, under Sam’s hand, the wound closed, though that didn’t seem to bring Gabriel any relief.  “But there’s not a lot… his grace is fighting it.  I’m worried that if I try anything, it will make it worse…”

Some color was returning to Gabriel’s fingertips now that the wound was closed.  “Let’s get him back then,” Sam said, trying to take charge and pretend that he wasn’t inwardly screaming. 

Gabriel for Dean?  That was not a deal they would take, but now they needed to rescue Dean all the more urgently, but Gabriel was down for the count through whatever poison this was, and they needed to make sure he wouldn’t die, because he was _Gabriel_ , and he had sacrificed himself for them against his own brother, and he couldn’t be taken out by a random demon-

“Stoppit,” Gabriel muttered into his arms, and Sam drew back slightly.

“Stop what?”

“Thinkin’ too loud,,,”

“Stop reading my mind,” Sam murmured, and then he pushed his arms underneath Gabriel, to pick him up.

At the movement, at the sudden shifting of weight, Gabriel moaned again, but then bit his own sleeve, pressing his face against Sam’s chest, letting himself be moved.  Sam could feel the archangel shuddering, could feel the spasms of muscles against the pain.  “I know,” he murmured, nodding at Jack to open the car door.  The boy quickly obliged, eyes wide as he watched, and Sam slid into the back seat with the archangel, leaving Castiel to drive.

And a moment later they were back on the road, heading back towards the motel.  Tension hung thick between them.

There was silence, until they hit a bump, and Gabriel hissed, laying half on Sam’s lap.  “I got you,” Sam murmured, running his fingers through Gabriel’s hair.  “It’s okay.”  The strands were damp with blood and sweat and the night dew that had coated the road, but Sam kept the small motion up, because Gabriel’s breathing seemed to come a bit easier with it, though maybe that was just Sam’s imagination. 

“We should call Fenrir,” Jack said, as they drove back into town.

Gabriel made a noise at that, one hand reaching out to clamp onto Sam’s bicep.  “No,” he whispered, and pushed himself half to a sitting position, gritting his teeth against the pain, even as Sam tried to push him down.  “Don’t.  Not his problem…”

Sam rubbed Gabriel’s arm slowly, trying to calm the archangel.  “Gabe, whatever this is-”

“Isn’t lethal,” Gabriel whispered in response, going limp again.  “Just hurts.”

“Are you sure-”

Sam was cut off by a sudden sense in his own head, a feeling that seemed to scream, yes, and, shut up, simultaneously.  He frowned, but the corner of Gabriel’s mouth twitched, even as he closed his eyes and buried his face in Sam’s stomach, trying to block out the light.  “Don’t call Fenrir yet,” Sam said, uncertain.  “We’ll figure out how to rescue Dean on our own.”

They arrived back at the motel a few minutes later, and it took Sam a minute to gather Gabriel into his arms.  The archangel tried to help, but every movement seemed to illicit only a hiss of pain, and actually being picked up rendered him useless.  “I’m sorry, I know,” Sam murmured as he carried him inside, setting him gently on the bed.  Immediately, Gabriel curled up, away from Sam, and Sam brushed the strands of hair from his face.  “It’s okay, Loki,” he murmured, and though he felt something close to ridiculous, like he was calling him by a character name, Gabriel relaxed slightly at that. 

Jack hovered by the door, watching, while Castiel moved next to them, touching Gabriel’s forehead again to make sure nothing had gotten worse.   Sam stepped back, and Gabriel made a little noise of complaint, turning slightly to look at him. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sam promised, for the moment at least.

Gabriel made a face at him, and then patted the bed beside him.  Despite the weakness of the movement, there was a command in it as well, and Sam glanced quizzically at Castiel before moving around the bed to sit awkwardly beside the archangel, trying not to jostle the mattress.  Immediately, Gabriel moved over, mimicking the position they’d held in the car, resting his head on Sam’s thigh like they were lovers instead of shaky allies. 

But at the physical contact, Sam could _feel_ Gabriel.  It wasn’t like the mindreading, not the obvious pricking in his thoughts, but it was the contact, like sunlight somewhere deep inside him.  Only it was weak, a faraway star rather than the blazing sun, and Sam started rubbing Gabriel’s shoulder, as it occurred to him that a cosmic being older than the universe itself, in excruciating pain, in a moment of debilitating weakness, had chosen his lap as a place to lay. 

His breath caught at the thought, at the sheer _honor_ of it, and it took him a moment to realize that Castiel and Jack were talking about Dean.

The case had suddenly turned much more serious.  One of the victims was still alive, as was Dean.  They could end the entire thing by handing over Gabriel, who had probably been incapacitated purposefully, but there was no way they were going to do that. He couldn’t fight- they couldn’t even hand him over as a false deal now, just letting the archangel fly away as soon as Dean and the girl were handed over.  And if they left Gabriel alone, what was to stop the clown monster from simply coming to collect his prize?  They didn’t know _what_ he was, after all.  It was possible that if they put up the basic wards, he could simply march right in, toss Gabriel over his shoulder, and leave without any of them knowing.

“This is my fault,” Jack whispered, half turning away.  “This was my case.  I should have-”

“Hey,” Sam snapped, voice dropping into a harsher tone.  “This was not your fault, Jack, you hear me?”  He waved a hand.  “We had no idea any of this stuff was happening. We thought it was a basic salt and burn.”

Jack still looked doubtful.  Sam gestured at him to come closer, despite Gabriel’s form still in his lap.  Hesitantly, Jack obeyed, eyes still big. 

As soon as he was close enough, Sam draped an arm around him, pulling him down to sit beside him on the bed.  Gabriel squeaked at the movement of the mattress, but didn’t protest.  “We’ll get you a real salt and burn to test yourself on,” Sam promised, rubbing the nephilim’s shoulder.  “But a whole demon ring?  We didn’t expect that.  But we’ve gotten out of worse scrapes before.  This is nothing.  We just need to make a plan.”

Jack didn’t look convinced, brow still furrowed, but he nodded. 

“And,” Sam pointed out, “you’re the only one who can stop that clown dick.  Both times, you’ve been the one to stop the fight.  So you might still win this one for us.”

He brightened a bit at that, though Sam could still feel the tension in his shoulders.  “You’re scared of it,” he said, and his lips quirked slightly into a grin.

Sam drew back slightly.  “Of course I’m… wary, of it, it’s a dangerous monster-”

“But you were scared before we even knew there was a clown monster,” Jack pointed out, tilting his head.  “You were terrified when we were just in the clown house.  Have you dealt with monster clowns before?”

Only a fake one born of his own irrational terror, but Sam wasn’t about to admit that to the room.  “Yes,” he said, nodding.  “They’re terrible.”  He hesitated.  “And Dean’s scared of planes, so nobody can talk, okay?”

And then he froze again, and looked down at the half-conscious slump that was Gabriel.  “Hold up- Gabe knows where they are.  You can just go grab Dean, Cas.”  Sam brightened considerably. 

Castiel nodded, arms crossed where he stood by the window, standing guard.  “If my brother would swallow his pride and amusement for a moment long enough to tell us the address,” he said, voice flat.  “Although he has a tendency to simply not tell important things.  Like his being alive, long after we mourned him.”

Gabriel made an annoyed noise, and then half sat up, though his arms were shaking.  “Abandoned field about six miles southeast of town,” he said, through gritted teeth.  “Surrounded by trees.”  He leaned back against Sam, breathing deeply for a moment.  “You can make the trade,” he said, settling into Sam’s arms.  His breath was shuddering at the exertion.  “It’s personal.  I killed her.”

“What?”  Sam slouched down a little, to better wrap an arm around Gabriel.  “What do you mean, you killed her?”

The archangel melted into the hunter’s arms.  He took a moment to breathe, trying to get the reaction to the toxin under control.  “Ages ago.  Forgot about it.  Just another trick.”  He didn’t laugh, but he grinned slightly.  “Had super-hot sex with Kali after-”

Sam rolled his eyes.  “Don’t worry guys.  Gabe’s okay.”

He got a weak elbow in the stomach for that. 

“They’ll just torture me a little, and then you guys can rescue me, or I’ll escape…” His voice trailed off as he winced, curling in on himself.  Sam grimaced and rubbed his shoulder, at a loss for how else to comfort him.  “Little torture every millennia is good for you,” Gabriel murmured after a moment, pressing against Sam.  “Keeps you on your toes.”

Castiel was considering it.  Sam could see the tilt of his head, the slight wrinkle of his nose when he looked at Gabriel. 

“No,” Sam said, point blank.  “You are not sacrificing yourself, Gabe.  You already did that once.  We won’t ask you again-”

“You’re not asking.  I’m offering-” He tried to sit up, to look more in control, but the exertion made him grit his teeth and fall back into Sam’s chest, trembling.

Sam wrapped an arm around him.  He did not think about the fact that Gabriel had just volunteered to be tortured even more to save Dean.  He did not think about the fact that he was offering himself up to save Sam’s brother.  He did not think about how on those endless Tuesdays, Gabriel had given Dean back to him when all he did was ask.  He did not think about any of that, because Gabriel would probably sense him thinking about that, and he didn’t want to scare the archangel off. “It’ll be okay, Gabe.  We’ll figure this out.  Cas can go save Dean and the girl, and bring them back here, and then we’ll wait until the poison wears off to do anything.”

Gabriel didn’t argue.  “Good,” he muttered, closing his eyes.  “I hate torture.”

 Jack looked between Sam and Castiel.  “Where should I go?” he asked.  “Should I stand guard, or…”

“Come with me.”  Castiel nodded at Jack.  “You can help me to rescue Dean.  Sam can protect Gabriel.”

“Don’t need protection,” Gabriel grumbled, but his voice was muffled, face squished against Sam.  Nobody responded to that, because that was clearly ridiculous.

Instead, Castiel’s shoulders tensed as he readied himself to take off, holding a hand out for Jack to join him. 

And then they were interrupted by a knock on the door. 

 

_Back at the circus_

Jenny stood just outside the bar tent, breathing slowly.  She didn’t know how to call Loki, and returning to the prison car was dangerous right now- she’d just told Carter she was quick hopping out to use the bathroom and then she’d return.  If she took more than a few minutes, she was scared that he would come looking for her. 

How did one talk to an old god?  Hell- how did an old god even exist?  Jenny barely even believed in a capital-G God, and now she was talking about Loki? 

She slid down, closer to the ground, and ran her hands down her face.  All she knew about Loki was that he was a trickster god, had fucked a horse at some point, and that he was really, really hot in the Marvel movies.  Not as hot as Thor, true, but still really hot.  But the thing she had met was certainly _not_ Tom Hiddleston, and somehow she doubted that he was carrying around the Tesseract.

Because this wasn’t a movie.  This was real life. 

The sob choked its way from her throat before she could swallow it down, and Jenny glanced back towards the doorway, worried that someone would see her cry.  Why had she spoken up?  Why hadn’t she just kept her mouth shut, stolen the keys, and-

A shadow passed by the door, and Jenny held her breath, moving around the corner of the tent so whoever was leaving wouldn’t see her crouching in the dark and crying. 

“She’s not gonna do it.”  It was Anthony, gesticulating wildly with all four hands.  “She’s not gonna save us.  Even if Loki shows up- which he totally won’t, because he’s a bastard- no, a fucking _asshole_ \- he’s just gonna… he’s gonna kill us all.” 

“Yeah, yeah.”  Emmett, noticeably less drunk, was guiding Anthony, one hand on his back.  “Don’t worry about it until tomorrow, okay?”

“We’re gonna die- again!”  Anthony seemed adamant that Emmett absorb this fact, turning around to grab the strongman’s arms.  “Don’t you see? We can’t go down like this!  Better slavery than… than… whatever the fuck happens in Hell-”

“There’s nothing we can do, Tony.”  Emmett glanced towards the doorway, then grabbed Anthony’s shoulders.  “Listen to me.  It’ll be alright, okay?  If it scares you that much, we’ll just kill the girl.  Alright?”

Jenny’s breath caught, but the sound was lost in Anthony’s sudden slump against Emmett’s chest, like the strongman was the only thing holding him up.  “I hate killing kids… I hate it… what happened to us?  We were fine, and then she…”

Emmett sighed, wrapping an arm around Anthony’s shoulders.  “Alright.  Let’s get you to bed.  I’ll take care of everything.”

Anthony made an incomprehensible noise as he was half dragged away.  Jenny was left alone, wide-eyed, hands covering her mouth to prevent her own scream. 

And yet.

And yet she couldn’t return to Dean, because he was locked up, and she needed the keys. 

As soon as she lowered her hands from her mouth, the sobs came again, her chest heaving.  She was going to die.  Jenny was going to die, and nobody could save her, and they’d probably dump her body in a ditch with the poor boy from the haunted house, and they would rot together and her parents would never find her or have a funeral for her or bury her and they would never know that she was dead and they would always hope that she was alive and every time the phone rang they would think it was the police calling with news-

“Jenny?”

It was Carter’s voice, breaking through the night, and Jenny leapt up, ready to run, but a hand was on her arm.  “Hey… hey, what’s wrong?”

She couldn’t fight him.  Even if she could run, she couldn’t cross the boundaries to get out of the field.  And Carter was looking at her with big, caring eyes, like he gave a shit about her life, but that was impossible, because she was just some stupid kid with tangled hair crying about her parents…

“Jenny, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” Carter murmured, drawing her in closer.  His arms were solid as they wrapped around her, like a shield between her body and the outside world.  “What’s wrong?  Is this about Loki?”

She couldn’t even speak past harsh sobs wracking her body.  All she could do was lean against Carter, take the false sense of comfort.  His body was warm as he held her, and she could feel him drop his chin to the top of her head, enveloping her.  Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, against his chest, and he didn’t push her away, even though she could feel the snot and tears of her ugly crying. 

“C’mon,” he said, pulling her away from the side of the tent.  “Let’s get you back to your trailer-”

“No!”  She jerked away from him, and she knew that she must look crazed, like a wide eyed lunatic. But Emmett knew where her trailer was, and returning would spell her death.  “I can’t… I can’t go-” But now the sobs were back, and she pressed her fists against her mouth, hating herself for being unable to speak. 

Carter just looked at her, and nodded.  “Okay, okay,” he murmured, reaching a hand out gently, like he were talking to a wild animal.  “We’ll go to my place, alright?  You need to get some rest… it’ll be a big day tomorrow.”

She shook her head again, trying to force the spasms in her chest to vanish.  “He’s… he’s going to…”

Carter stepped forward, lightly gripping her upper arms.  “Who’s going to do what?”

After a long moment of silence, she murmured, “he’s going to kill me.”

“Who’s going to kill you?”  Carter started rubbing her arms, the movements slow and calming.  “Talk to me, Jenny.  I’m on your side.  I promise.”

“Emmett.”  Her voice was a broken whisper.

Carter drew in a harsh breath, and the movements of his hands on her arms suddenly stopped.  “Alright,” he said.  “Don’t worry.  I won’t let that happen.  Come to my trailer, okay?  You’ll be safe there.”

She didn’t have a choice.  He was already pulling her away, and she knew that she needed to run and hide, except his hands were strong on her arms and his voice was soft and she trusted him.  She knew it was a mistake, that it would backfire, but she didn’t know what else to do.  Where could she hide when all these people knew each other? 

And so she followed him, all the while praying that she wouldn’t have to do anything, that Loki would show up on his own.

 

_Back at the motel_

At the same time that the knock sounded on the door, Castiel stiffened, eyes widening, and Gabriel made a little sound, fingers curling into Sam’s shirt.  Even more obvious than the reactions of the angels though, was a sudden crackling outside the room. 

Before anyone could look out the window, a letter was slid under the door.  Despite Sam’s warning shout, Jack picked it up, breaking the seal and pulling out the note inside. 

Thankfully, there was no white powder, tiny bombs, or poison gas. 

“We’ve been surrounded by holy fire,” Castiel murmured, pushing the curtain aside to look at the low flames outside.  “Gabriel and I are trapped.”  He glanced over at Jack, unsure if the holy oil flames would hold him as well.

Jack swallowed, then looked down at the letter.  His hands were shaking slightly.  Castiel and Sam’s unease was leaking into the room, poisoning the air, and he could feel it as clearly as he could feel his own heartbeat.  The letter was heavy in his hands, but he kept his voice steady as he read it aloud. 

 _As per our agreement, we will make the trade at dawn.  Come sunrise, we will extinguish the flames, and you will bring Loki the Lie Smith to the town square_.  _If you do not, Dean Winchester will perish.  Painfully._ J

For a moment, there was silence, and then Gabriel grumbled something against Sam’s leg.  It was in another language, but the tone of voice made it clear to Jack that it was an expletive of some sort.  “Guys, it’s fine,” he said, pushing himself up to lean against Sam.  “Just make the trade.”

“Gabriel-” Sam started, but Gabriel reached up to cover the hunter’s mouth with his hand. 

“Look,” he said, wincing as he sat up completely.  That would have been impossible several minutes ago, but either Gabriel was gaining strength, or the poison was too low of a dosage to completely throw him out of commission for long.  “I’m going back on what I said.  I’m gonna _deus ex machina_ this bitch, ‘cause this case is getting boring.  But for that, I need my strength, so I’m going to take a nap, and the rest of you are gonna… I dunno, play a board game or something.” 

Jack didn’t know what an angel’s true voice sounded like, but now he wondered if there wasn’t some frequency of grace in Gabriel’s words, or if it was simply the way he gazed at each of them in turn, set jaw not allowing for any questions on the matter.  “Should we call Fenrir?” the boy asked anyways, because Fenrir was probably the strongest person he knew, next to the Winchesters, and he liked his cousin, despite the gruffness. 

Gabriel’s gaze softened slightly, and he shook his head.  “It’s not his problem,” he repeated.

“But he can help-”

“No.”  Gabriel’s tone left no room for argument.  “Dean will be fine until morning.  We make the trade at dawn.  I have a plan, and I’m the archangel, so I make the rules.  Kapeesh?”

Nobody argued, and Jack sank down into the chair next to the desk.  He could sense the flames outside now, like heat flickering on the edge of his mind, staking out his boundaries.  Could he cross them, he wondered?  He didn’t want to try alone, and yet, Dean was alone in that place with the demon clown, and Jack couldn’t relax for fear of what they were doing to him. 

But those fears didn’t seem to faze Gabriel.  The archangel-demigod was no longer touching Sam, but had buried himself under the blankets.  How he could simply fall asleep through the pain of the poison, Jack didn’t know, but apparently, it was possible. 

Sam swung his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed.  There was silence for a long moment.  But even when he cast a helpless look towards Castiel, Jack knew that there was nothing any of them could do until morning. 

 

_At the circus_

Jenny had never slept with a guy before.

When they’d actually gotten into bed together, she’d been terrified that he would try something, that his hands would start to wander and that she’d be in danger from all sides, but nothing of the sort happened.  What did happen was that he told her to wake her if she got scared again, and then he turned over, back to her, and fell asleep almost immediately. 

It had taken Jenny considerably longer to fall asleep, and it was only sheer exhaustion that caused her to pass out after a few hours staring at the dark wall.  Her dreams had been disjointed, leaving her heart pounding, and now she was awake again and had no idea whether it was two am or five am, because she had no phone and she couldn’t see where Carter kept a clock. 

But now she actually needed the bathroom. 

There had been a small private one in her trailer, no more elaborate than that of an RV bathroom, but she couldn’t see anything like that in the darkness of Carter’s trailer.  There were a few porta-potties out by the edge of the field, near the prison car, but that would mean leaving in the middle of the night and being open to any attack by Emmett. 

The attack was what scared her the most, but losing control of her bladder in front of the only guy who had _ever_ expressed any interest- even if it was just hugging her while she sobbed for her life- was unthinkable. 

She had no choice but to get up.  She would sneak to her own trailer, and then-

And then she would sneak to the prison trailer again. 

Maybe Dean would know how to talk to Loki again?  They had acted like they’d known each other, after all.

Jenny drew a deep breath, and then sat up slowly, careful to not jostle the mattress and wake Carter.  He seemed to be a heavy sleeper though- the noise of the springs did nothing more but illicit a slight hitch in his breathing.  Her shoes were next to the door, and she slipped those on before casting about for something she could use as a weapon. 

There was a set of knives glittering in the wane moonlight cast through the window.  They were pretty knives, decorative, with intricate carvings on the handles.  No doubt they were meant for show, for tossing at people spinning on giant wheels or juggling, but when she touched the blade of one to her fingertip, a drop of dark blood appeared.

She smothered her squeak of surprise and sucked on the prick on her finger. 

Jenny only took one, not trusting her own hands to defend herself with two, and then slipped out the door, into the cool early morning.  It had been completely dark within the trailer, but outside, birds were singing, and there was a paler tint to the eastern sky.  Carter’s pet bird was freely hopping about on the ground outside the trailer, pecking at whatever little bugs lived in the grass.  The sparrow chirped at her a few times, tilting its head to look at her with both black little eyes, but when Jenny reached out to it, it hopped away. 

Her hand was sweaty where it curled around the knife.  Even though the sky was beginning to lighten, it was still dark on the ground, and she didn’t want to be surprised by anything.  Taking a deep breath, she struck out, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds, jumping at every noise. 

She made it to her own trailer without incident, and all but slammed the door behind her.  It was only when she flicked the light on that she realized she hadn’t checked for invaders, but when she held up the knife, there was nobody there.

Thanking any deity who was listening, she rushed to the tiny bathroom. 

A moment later, when she’d rubbed stinging hand sanitizer into her hands (nice of these demons to be clean, at least?) Jenny picked up the knife again.  She didn’t know how to guess the time, or what time sunrise was even supposed to be at, but she did want to talk to Dean now that she wasn’t concerned about the bathroom. 

Feeling slightly bolstered by her success sneaking across the field a moment earlier, Jenny threw the door open. 

The clown was right outside, and Dean Winchester was flung over his shoulder, limp.  Blood soaked half his head.

Jenny squeaked, despite herself.  In the split second before she could slam the door, Chuckles looked over at her, and grinned his toothy leer.

The leer floated in her vision even after she’d locked the door and sat down against it, hugging her knees and shivering.  Outside, she could hear Chuckles’s footsteps get further and further away as he carried off her savior. 

She’d been too late. 

Dean Winchester was dead, all because she hadn’t gotten the keys. 

Jenny pressed her hand to her mouth at the realization.  Tears pricked her eyes.  A man had died because of her, and now Chuckles was carrying him off. 

Jenny’s incompetence had killed Dean Winchester. 

Jenny killed Dean Winchester. 

There were no sobs this time.  A few tears dampened her cheeks, but Jenny sat in silence, staring at the wall, a weight crushing her lungs.  While she’d been playing maiden in distress with Carter, a man had died.  A man had died whom she could have saved. 

There was no coming back from that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. Seriously, I somehow managed to pick the classes with the highest workload this semester which is not fun at all. Only one or two chapters left of the circus arc (and trust me, Dean and Cas not seeing each other yet is killing me as much as it's killing you).


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for torture in this chapter. Just throwing that out there.
> 
> Also, thanks to @scrollingkingfisher for letting me spitball plot. Even if I did it when you were asleep so you couldn't complain ;)

_The motel room_

“I’m bored.”  The boy was laying across the motel bed, arms and head dangling off the edge so that he was looking upside-down at the man sitting on the other bed.  “When did Dean say he was getting back?”

“Not too long now, I think.”  The man grinned.  “You wanna play a game, Sammy?”

Gabriel found that he was sitting cross legged on the desk across from the two beds, watching the scene.  He looked down at his own hands a moment, and then up, eyes flicking from the boy to the flamboyantly dressed man.  No- not a man, he realized when he actually looked with angel eyes rather than human eyes.  It was one of the Zanna, those invisible guardians of childhood innocence, and the boy on the bed was Sam Winchester. 

So this was a memory, and they were both sleeping. 

“I don’t want any more games.”  Young Sam was glaring up at the ceiling, soft features creased with frustration.  “I want Dean to come back.  He’s been gone too long.  What if he got hurt?”  He wasn’t crying, but his voice had gone up in pitch- the boy was very worried, and Gabriel was willing to bet his wings that it had something to do with Dean’s missing in the real world.

He pretended that he wasn’t thinking about the Mystery Spot, and that he didn’t feel like a giant asshole- it had been necessary at the time, and what was done was done.

“But you’re not alone, Sammy.”  The Zanna’s voice was bright and happy, but there was a tension in his shoulders- dealing with a Winchester was probably the hardest case he’d ever had.  “You’ve got me here.”

“And me.”  Gabriel hopped off the desk and grinned, making himself known.  Both the Zanna and youth-Sam looked over at him- Sam quizzically, and the Zanna defensively. 

“Loki,” the Zanna said, frowning as he recognized him.  He still looked wary. 

“Loki?”  Sam scrambled up, looking from the Zanna to Gabriel, eyes suddenly going wide.  “No way- like the comics?  You don’t look like-”

“I take many forms, kiddo,” Gabriel said with a grin, and then he snapped his fingers.  A cherry-red tootsie pop appeared, and he held it out to the boy.  “Just stopping by for a visit.”

Youth-Sam eyed the lollipop suspiciously, and when he didn’t take it, Gabriel popped it into his own mouth.  Chances were that Sam was sleeping now as well, especially if he wasn’t defensively shoving Gabriel away from the memory.  It was refreshing, seeing Sam’s memories instead of Sam sneaking into his (not that he’d minded Sam getting a glimpse of his old vessel). 

“Now,” Gabriel said, making sure their attention was on him, “I heard you were bored, so I decided to pop by and spread some fun.  You ready?  What’s the one thing you always wanted to do?”

Sam still looked suspicious.  “I just want Dean back,” he repeated.

Just out of Sam’s line of sight, the Zanna gave Gabriel a helpless look and shrugged. 

Gabriel sat down on the bed, putting enough distance between himself and the boy so that youth-Sam wouldn’t feel threatened by him.  “Deano will be back,” he promised.  “He’s just running late.  But for now, it’s just you, me, and…” He looked over at the Zanna, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m Sully,” the Zanna replied.

“You, me, and Sully.”  Gabriel hopped up.  “Now c’mon, enough moping.  We can do literally anything you want, Sammich.”  He grinned.  “What have you always wanted to do?  We could go hit up a baseball game, tour Rome, catch all the future _Star Wars_ movies, learn to sword fight…?”

Sam blinked, looking up at him.  “We can do anything?”

Gabriel nodded, dropping to one knee so he would be on eye level with the boy.  “Anything you want,” he reiterated, dead serious.  “Time travel.  Space travel.  Whatever you wanna see, I’ll show you.”

Sam’s eyes were big as his child-brain spun, trying to run through the possibilities.  At the same time, Gabriel ran through the options- what would nerdy little Sammy-boy really like? 

And then he had a stroke of inspiration.

“Have you ever heard of the Library of Alexandria?” he asked.

Sam’s eyes went huge, and he nodded.  “That got burned down thousands of years ago,” he said.  “It had all the knowledge in the world.”

Gabriel nodded gravely.  “But I can time travel.”

Sam’s eyeballs now looked like they were going to fall out of his head, and Gabriel had to fight to keep the serious expression on his face.  This was going to be so worth it- a field trip from this boring case that they’d gotten tangled up in (and Gabriel really wasn’t worried about the demons; they would be easy enough to smite once he woke up with a little more energy). 

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Sully the Zanna started, but Sam had already latched onto the idea, and even as Sully finished the sentence, he was vanishing, gone from Sam’s mind. 

“C’mon.”  Gabriel grinned, hopping to his feet, and held out a hand to the boy.  “I’m gonna show you something that hasn’t been seen in thousands of years.”

Sam nodded eagerly and reached out to take Gabriel’s hand, and it was testament to his youth that he was so trusting. 

It kind of stung.  Gabriel had no right to desire Sam’s trust, and yet the child’s hand in his own gave him a warm feeling in his chest.  He chose to ignore it- this was simply his moment to take advantage of the fact that they were together within a dream and he was the one in control. 

With a single beat of his wings they were whisked away through time and space as Gabriel took over the universe within the dream, editing it to his own memory of a past era. 

And then they were standing in Alexandria, on a cobblestone walk, and despite himself, Sam’s jaw dropped in awe. 

They stood on the stone steps outside a grand marble building.  Great pillars held the roof, and men dressed in colorful robes and leather sandals sat on the stairs, listening to the lecture of a woman who was gesticulating wildly as she described having visions of the future.  “A priestess of Apollo,” Gabriel murmured into Sam’s ear, gesturing towards her.  “He grants his oracles the ability to see the future.”

Sam nodded, eyes wide, and turned a circle, though he made sure to continue holding Gabriel’s hand.  Gabriel hadn’t edited the place at all- there was dirt and mud on the roads, and a beggar was pleading for spare change, and a group of naked children were playing some ancient version of hacky-sack. 

Gabriel elbowed Sam and raised his eyebrows.  Suddenly their clothes changed from jeans to period costumes- Sam wore a boy’s tunic and sandals, and Gabriel was dressed in rougher browns and greens from the north.  His cloak though, in a nod to the comics that Sam had mentioned, was bright yellow. 

Shops were set up on the street leading to the library, selling all sorts of goods from Punt and Athens and Jerusalem, and the shouts of buyer and sellers mingled with braying donkeys and barking dogs and shouting children, and all the noises were entwined together around a melody being played on a lyre by someone out of sight. 

But the library was the true reason for being there, and Gabriel added nothing more to the dream besides the street they were on, though, to be historically accurate, you could technically see the docks from here. 

When Sam had drunk in the sight of the ancient street, of the colorful clothes and diverse peoples and the babble of foreign languages, he tugged Gabriel’s hand towards the library.  “Can we go inside?”

“That depends, kiddo.”  Gabriel shot him a grin.  “Do you have a library card?”

Sam’s eyes went even bigger, this time in a panic.  “Not with me…”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”  Gabriel squeezed his hand and led him forward towards the steps- each one was shallow enough, but there were so many of them that the library was raised almost a story above the city streets.  The oracle was beautiful, the sun shining off her bronze skin, and she smiled at Sam as he walked up the steps, pausing in her speech. “You, my boy, have a grand future ahead of you,” she said. 

Sam froze, looking between her and Gabriel.  “I do?”

Gabriel was controlling the oracle’s actions, but simply by looking at him, one would never know.  She was a puppet in his hands, and there was a kind smile on her face as she walked towards Sam and reached down to lift his chin up.  “The future is in your hands,” she said, and let go of his face, turning her own gaze skyward.  “I see a great war… you will win many battles, and the entire universe will be in your debt.”

Sam’s eyes were big as he watched her, his fingers tight around Gabriel’s hand. 

She leaned down, like she was imparting a secret.  “Stay strong, kiddo,” she said, and ruffled his hair before returning to the crowd. 

Sam’s face was lit up like he’d been touched by an angel- a stained glass, Renaissance angel, not a real one, but Gabriel wasn’t done with this field trip yet. 

“C’mon,” he said, tugging Sam’s hand to pull them up the stairs.  “There’s so much more here to see.”

The atrium was wide and well lit, and voices echoed off the tiles and pillars.  Suddenly, two voices echoed above the rest.

“What do you mean you’ll only give me three bronzes for this?”   It was a Viking woman, tall and blond.  Unused to the southern heat, she was dressed only in a light corset and long, sleeveless tunic, exposing her toned arms and legs.  “This is clearly a magic scroll!  It was written by the god Loki himself, and it is _insulting_ that you wouldn’t offer the full price for it!”

“This scroll,” said the Egyptian priest, arms crossed, “Is clearly a fake.  I am the head psychic of Alexandria, and I cannot sense any magic about this scroll at all, pagan or otherwise.”

“Watch this,” Gabriel told the boy, and then he let go of Sam’s hand and marched over to the argument.  “A scroll written by Loki, you say,” he said, elbowing through the crowd.  “I happen to be an expert on the god Loki.”

 “An expert?” the woman scoffed, crossing her freckled arms and glaring.  “What makes _you_ an expert?”

“Yes, who are you?” the Egyptian priest asked, wrinkling his nose.  He wore a long robe that brushed the ground, and his hair was little more than white wisps.  He looked like he’d been mummified already. 

Sam trotted up to join him, ducking under elbows in the crowd like he was used to being small.  “He’s Loki,” the boy announced proudly when he burst into the center, like he was showing off his new best friend.  “He knows what that scroll is because he’s the one who wrote it.”

The crowd went silent, and the hush spread across the entire atrium.  Gabriel smiled, and gave a little bow, flaring out the yellow of his cloak with one arm.  “Why yes, I am he,” he said, and snapped his fingers. 

Sam shouted in delight, because in a puff of smoke, Gabriel had changed guises.  Now he was Tom Hiddleston, tall and dark haired, wearing the horned helmet of such fame.  “I am Loki Laufeyson,” he declared to the atrium.  “And this scroll-” he held out his hand for it- “is a sham!”

Gasps echoed, and Gabriel tossed the scroll away.  It clattered across the floor, unrolling itself as it bumped over the edges of the tiles, revealing the Nordic runes it contained.  “How dare you try to sell it on the pretense that I wrote it!”  He stalked towards the Viking woman.  “My handwriting is _much_ nicer than that.”

The woman raised an eyebrow.  “You’re not Loki,” she said.  “You’re just a magician who can shift forms.  I think-”

 “You clearly do _not_ think,” Gabriel declared, hamming it up as he twirled a dagger into his hands. 

He wasn’t actually going to stab her (maybe), but Sam was a young boy, and if Gabriel knew anything about young boys, he knew they liked sharp things.  But suddenly Sam was grabbing his arm.  “Loki, don’t- she doesn’t know any better!”

Gabriel paused, looking down at the boy, at his big hazel eyes, and lowered the dagger.  No violence- okay, he could do that. 

He turned back to the Viking.  “I will forgive you on the grounds that you return to your lands and live an honest life,” he said, and the words sounded ridiculous and fake coming from his mouth, but Sam seemed to like it.  “The rest of you- return to your business!”

Like nothing had happened, everyone else returned to their loitering.

Sam’s eyes were still huge, and now he looked distracted.  “What’s up, kiddo?” Gabriel asked, taking off the helmet and turning back into the shorter blond man. 

“You weren’t… actually going to hurt her, were you?”  Sam swallowed, looking up from under his eyelashes. 

Gabriel blinked.  “No, of course not,” he lied, dropping to one knee.  “I was just trying to scare them a little- they were trying to get more money than the scroll was worth, and that’s lying.”  Okay, so he’d just been trying to impress the boy and it backfired- so sue him.  His boys would have loved it.  He’d taken Fen and Jör to gladiator fights all the time (Hela hadn’t been interested on the grounds that she didn’t care about sports, and Sigyn had been morally opposed and forbidden that particular entertainment for Vali and Nari). 

Sam still looked unsure, so Gabriel reached out and set the horned helmet on the boy’s head.  “C’mon- we haven’t even seen the best part yet,” he declared, and hopped up, pulling the boy behind him. 

They practically ran down a great hallway lined with statues.  These weren’t the broken ones in museums though- these were fresh and new, young and beautiful.  The marble had been painted so artfully that they could have been real people, and Gabriel saw Sam’s eyes catch on more than one exposed breast, heard the boy’s shy giggle at the artful nakedness even as they darted down the hall, dodging boring old priests and scholars on their way to the main scroll room.

 And then they came to a cavernous hall, filled with shelves and shelves and shelves that seemed to go on to infinity, and each one was filled with scrolls.  There were more statues here, and tables for reading, and the entire place was hushed like a library.  A few students of philosophy murmured together at a nearby table, though Gabriel didn’t bother translating the Greek to English.  It added ambiance, leaving it the different language.

“This is it,” Gabriel waved a hand out wide.  “This is the treasure trove of public knowledge.  This is what the world lost so long ago.”

“Wow.”  And the boy’s whisper as he stared at the vast ocean of knowledge made this whole dream worth it. 

Gabriel’s only regret was that, were Sam to start randomly pulling scrolls off shelves and reading them, there would be no knowledge on them, at least, not in English.  Gabriel had actually read perhaps two, maybe three of the scrolls here, and he didn’t remember any of it.  He couldn’t properly place that knowledge into a dream.  If Sam wanted to actually read them, they’d have to time travel. 

Which was totally possible, when Gabriel was at full power, but was dangerous too- the Library was a Fixed Point, and not even a Time Lord could stop its burning.  Sam Winchester, with his penchant for saving the world, would probably fuck everything up if Gabriel brought him back here for real.

But small, youthful dream-Sam didn’t have any of this knowledge, and now he was darting forward to pull scrolls off the shelves at random.  Sure enough, each one he pulled off was in another language, and were Sam to memorize it and translate it into English (or Latin, rather), it would merely be _lorem ipsum_ filler text. 

But to the child mind that Sam now possessed, each scroll he pulled from the shelves contained a treasure trove of knowledge that had been lost to the ages, and the grin on his face was one that Gabriel had never seen before.  He was happy here, darting from shelf to shelf, ducking under the arms of toga-clad priests who grumbled at the child loose in the library. 

He stopped suddenly, in front of a giant statue of an angel.  Michael, of all angels, in full battle armor, lance raised to smite down the evil.  His wings were tensed back, like he was coming in for landing, and there was a cruel twist to his mouth, and his painted eyes were cold.  It looked like Dean- adult Dean, whom Gabriel knew, and Gabriel cursed himself for letting that tidbit through his subconscious. 

“Dean would think this was so cool,” Sam said, looking up at the statue.  He turned back, to look at Gabriel.  “Can we go back and grab him?”

Gabriel opened his mouth to respond, but at the thought of Dean, Sam’s face scrunched in confusion.  Gabriel knew the game was up, and he didn’t fight it as the vision of Alexandria faded. 

They were both in what looked like a war bunker now.  Gabriel looked around at the scene, catching sight of a logo.  “Men of Letters?” he asked, looking over at Sam, who has lost the child-visage and was appearing as an adult again.

They were still dreaming.  “Um, yeah,” Sam said.  “We kinda live here now… what was that?”

“What was what?” Gabriel asked, playing dumb.

Sam’s bitchface was a beauty to behold.  “What did you just do?”

“Ah.”  Gabriel sat on the edge of the table.  “Apparently you passed out, and I got sucked into your dream, so I gave you a little treat.  You likey?”

­Sam ran a hand down his face.  “We don’t have time-”

“This is a dream, Sammich.”  Gabriel waved a hand.  “Time stands still when you’re asleep.  Didn’t you watch _Inception_?  Leo knows how it works.  We’ve got all the time in the world to talk about why the hell we’re sharing each other’s dreams right now.”

Sam glanced to the side, wheels in his head clearly turning.  “I told you, I don’t know why this is happening.”

Gabriel tilted his head, watching the hunter think.  “I don’t mind, really,” he said after a moment.  “And I never got a chance to thank you for your offer earlier… the, uh, possession one.”

Sam looked up sharply.

“I’m not gonna possess you,” Gabriel said quickly, holding up his hands to alleviate any worries.  “But I know that’s a big thing for you.  And I appreciate that.  Even though I’d much rather be on your bod than in your bod.”

Sam was quiet for a long moment, and then he nodded, accepting the thanks.  He ignored the last part.

Gabriel hesitated, not quite sure where to go with it.  Were they alone, or in separate places, he would have laughed and taken on the visage of the girl vessel that Sam liked so much, but Jack and Castiel were in the physical room as well, so that seemed a violation.  He knew Sam was still not happy, especially with Dean missing, and there wasn’t really anything he could say to fix that. 

And so they were at an impasse, and they were stuck until one of them woke up. 

“Was that… actually that library?”  Sam glanced over at Gabriel, and there was a delicate, almost shy expression on his face that was completely at odds with the height and muscles.  “Or was that just you screwing around again?”

 _Again_.  Gabriel bit down the offended snort, because he did more than just screw around with reality.  Or he had, at one point.  Nowadays, he supposed that really was all he did, so he had no reason to be offended, but the way Sam said it…

“Yeah, it was,” he said, nodding.  “At least, what I remember of it.  Mighta taken a few liberties, but…”

Sam swallowed, nodding, and a moment later, like sunlight drifting through a cloud, a little smile appeared on his lips.  “Wow,” he whispered. 

Gabriel slid off the table and drifted closer, helpless against that smile as a swimmer caught in the undertow. “I can show you more of that stuff,” he said, stepping forward lightly.  “We could go back in time and explore the entire thing for real.  Any time, any place...”

Sam looked up sharply, hazel eyes glittering in the low light of the war bunker.  “Why does it sound like you’re offering me a demon deal?”

That suspicion stung, but Gabriel supposed he earned it.  “I am the Lie Smith,” he pointed out with an apologetic shrug.  “I could be lying.  But where would the fun be in that?”  He stepped forward again, and now they were close enough to touch.

But now he was frozen, caught in the orbit of Sam’s power, that psychic melody of demon taint and human goodness, and even if his hands didn’t move, his grace reached out and his feathers trembled as he leaned closer to the hunter. 

It was Sam who looked down at him, who reached out to touch his arm, and then they were looking at each other, and the air between them trembled as the control of the dream was lost.  Gabriel stood on his toes, unconsciously pushing himself closer, praying to whatever power was above him that Sam would make the move, that Sam would close the space between them-

And the incessant buzzing of Sam’s alarm clock shattered the dream into a thousand pieces.

 

_The Town Square_

Dean groaned as he came to, moving one hand to touch the back of his head.  His hair was sticky with blood and there was a nasty knot under the skin that pulsed in time with his heartbeat, but there was no blurring of his vision, and his thoughts were clear.  That meant the most damage was a bruise and possibly a mild concussion, easily fixed by time and sleep. 

Not that time and sleep were a luxury they could ever afford.

He was laying on the ground, body slumped against the concrete of a sidewalk.  Overhead, a streetlamp flickered dimly, and a bit further away, a lonely stoplight slowly flipped through its cycle, casting green and red and yellow in slow succession. 

And, closer and more worrisome than the knot on his head, was the demon clown.  The bastard sat on the bench, legs crossed delicately as a model, and it grinned its wicked shark-tooth grin at Dean when it saw him moving.  “Good morning, beautiful,” it said, uncrossing its legs to kick Dean lightly in the side.  “Have a good nap?”

“It was pretty refreshing, actually,” Dean grunted, sitting up.  He remembered now, remembered passing out for sheer exhaustion, remembered the clown shaking him awake, remembered throwing a punch before getting hit on the head.  “Is that how you treat all the ladies?”

“Only the pretty ones,” the clown said, and reached out with its foot again, tracing the toe of one stained red shoe down Dean’s side, from his ribs to his hip.  “Pity we won’t be keeping you around.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed as he tried to determine whether the words meant they were going to let him loose or simply kill him outright, but his answer came with the purr of a familiar engine.  He moved to stand, tripping over the ropes around his legs, and moved to untie himself. 

The clown made no move to stop him, but rather stood up, arms wide in a welcome to the car.  “Sam Winchester!” it called out in its grating, broken voice.  “You have agreed to our terms?”

The impala parked, and Sam was there, even as Dean stood up, ready to jump the clown.  Before Dean could move though, the freak whipped around, and there was a glint in his hand. 

And then there was pain across his abdomen, and Dean was falling, and he realized he’d been slashed across the stomach.  He gasped, shirt already soaked through, and was only dimly aware of Sam’s shout.

“I don’t have time for any tricks,” the clown said, “even though I _do_ love a good laugh.  So quick-quick, hand over Loki, or your brother will bleed out right here on the sidewalk.”

Dean gasped, pressing his hands into the wound.  It was deep, too deep, and he had the horrifying thought that he was holding his own guts in, and-

“It’s okay.”  Gabriel was there a moment later, stepping from the passenger seat of the car.  The archangel looked rough, jaw clenched, but he ignored Sam’s warning to walk across the clearing.  “Got your goopy insides okay there, Deano?  Don’t worry.  Soon as we’re gone, Cassie will be by to fix you up.”  He grinned, reached down to pat Dean’s shoulder, and then held out his wrists to the clown.  “Be gentle,” he said, fluttering his eyelashes.  “I bruise ever so easily.”

Black was closing in around Dean’s vision, and he blinked furiously, struggling to stay conscious even as each heartbeat pumped more and more blood onto the sidewalk.  It still wasn’t the pain of Hell, but damn it hurt, and if he didn’t close himself up, he would actually die. 

Sam was closer now, and closer, and then he was leaning down over Dean.  “It’s okay, Dean, it’s okay-”

The black was closing in, and as soon as Sam’s hand touched his shoulder, Dean let himself fall limp, trusting his brother, or trusting Death, he didn’t know.  He didn’t care.

 

_The circus_

As dawn cast a dewy light over the tents, there was a new flurry of activity.  Music echoed as people practiced; animals growled and roared and trumpeted as they were walked in circles to limber up; dancers counted off; workers rushed to put up last minute lights and decorations.  Somewhere, the lizard boy was screaming- they didn’t give him breakfast on performance days, so he’d be hungry come the show, and for some reason, he never appreciated that.

The only one who wasn’t bustling frantically about was Loretta.  Rather, she was waiting at her desk within her tent for her most loyal servant and his prize. Outwardly, she was calm and imposing, but anybody who knew her would notice the slight tension in her shoulders, notice the almost minuscule movement of her foot tapping. 

She was about to come face to face with her own killer, and she wasn’t sure if she was terrified or looking forward to it.

However, there wasn’t much time for Loretta to figure it out, because a moment later, the curtain was pushed aside, and in walked Chuckles, steering a small blondish man before him.

Loretta didn’t do him the courtesy of standing, but she did look him over, gaze traveling down his body and back up to his face.  It was certainly the same man from before, though he looked a bit worse for wear now.  His hair was messy rather than slicked back, falling in soft curls around his face, which possibly had one or two more lines on it (or maybe he was just gritting his teeth against the vestiges of poison she’d sent against him the night before).  Rather than an expensive suit, he simply wore a button down shirt and a pair of jeans, ripped in one knee. 

There was no sign of these archangel rumors though- Loretta’s demonic senses were good at identifying inhuman creatures, and at most, Loki was a demigod, same as before.  There was nothing cosmic about him.  Even the gold eyes of such fame were nothing more than a light brown color- gold, perhaps, to somebody trying to romanticize him, but nothing special that couldn’t occur in a normal mortal.

“Like what you see?” he asked, cocking his hips like a girl posing for a photo.  “It’s been ages.  Glad to see you’ve still got the Joker thing going on.  You know that’s been done before, right?”  He raised his hands to gesture at his own cheeks, laughing at her scars.

She ignored his laughter and motioned at Chuckles to go.  The clown, true to his vicious nature, kicked out one of Loki’s knees before he did, sending the demigod to the ground, and then Loretta and Loki were alone. 

Only now did she stand up.  Loki remained where he was, on one knee, grinning up at her.  “You know, I actually forgot about you guys,” he said conversationally.  “Sorry about killing you, but I was trying to impress my girlfriend.  You know how chaos goddesses are.  Spilled blood gets them all frisky.”

Loretta remained silent, circling him.  He was cooperating for now, but how long until he got bored?  It didn’t matter though- the demon stepped back, over the oily circle that had already been created on the ground, and pulled a lighter from her pocket.  A second later, Loki was trapped by a double circle of holy flames and pagan runes- there was no escaping, whichever one of his identities was true.

Loki didn’t even flinch as the fire sprang up, although a few beads of sweat appeared at his hairline.  “So I guess I owe you a thanks, because _damn_ , that was a good night.  Sorry you couldn’t be there to share it, but hey, if you want some now, I’ve never banged Harley Quinn before.”  He paused, tilting his head.  “Like, actual Harley Quinn.  Had a threesome with Joker and Harley Quinn cosplayers once, but you demons have much more interesting taste-”

She reached across the fire to slap him, hard enough to whip his head around and almost send him to the ground.  “You are disgusting,” she hissed. 

He spat blood to the floor, then grinned up at her, teeth red.  Truly, it was probably not from the slap, but from his biting his own mouth when she hit him, but it still served the same purpose.  He was as insane as she was.  “Are you telling me that you, a demon overlord of a whole weird fetish show, is offended by me thanking you?  Wow.  I’m just being polite here, but hey, you’re welcome to just be a bitch about it.”

She narrowed her eyes, then moved away to pick up the vial that she had given Chuckles earlier.  Roughly half the venom remained.  “Do you recognize this?”

His eyes fixed on the vial, and then he sat back on his heels, docile and obedient.  “Now, now, no need for punishment.  I’m cooperating, see?”  He smiled sweetly, licking his teeth to get rid of the blood, like he knew exactly how he was presenting himself.

Loretta had no doubt that he did.  She stepped over the flames to enter his circle, gripping his chin and turning his face upwards.  “The rumors say that you are an archangel,” she mused, tracing the corked bottle down the side of his cheek.  “Is this true?”

He shrugged, and it was only the slightest tilt of his head away from the vial that told her he was actually concerned about the contents within.  “You know how rumors are.  I might be, I might not.  Only one way to find out, huh?”

“And what is that one way?” she asked, waiting for another sex joke.

He paused, eyes flicking to the side.  “Actually, I didn’t think you’d respond to that, so I didn’t have anything ready.  I guess try to get me to cross the fire circle?  So, are you gonna torture me or make out with me?  Totally down with either.  I love pain.  Oooh mama, it makes me so excited.”

Experimentally, holding it away from her body in case of any splash, she unstoppered the bottle.  Loki flinched away, blowing a hole in his claim of being a masochist.  “I thought as much,” Loretta said, and re-stoppered the bottle.  “Truth be told, Loki or Gabriel or whatever you are, I have a third plan for you.  You probably won’t like it, but unfortunately for you, you have no choice.”

Loki raised an eyebrow.  “I’m listening.”

Loretta moved back to the desk, straightening her papers like Loki was the least of her responsibilities.  “You are going to be a gift for a demon greater than myself,” she said, glancing back over at him.  “A gesture of good will in the many power struggles Hell has recently gone through.  Whether you are archangel or mere trickster, you are a valuable pawn.”

He was silent for a moment, head tilted.  “Who’s in charge of Hell now?”

Loretta ignored the question, returning to stand in front of Loki.  “You are a pretty thing, aren’t you,” she mused, looking him over.  “I see what they say about your eyes.  In the right light, I suppose they are gold.”  She reached out to tilt his head over, so that the light from the flames shone through the sides of his irises. He allowed the movement, expression bemused.

Loki fallen from the being he once was, laughing in the audience, turning her people against her.  Now he was weakened from the vestiges of poison and the circle he was trapped within.  And as she looked down at him, Loretta smiled.

Once, she herself had been nothing more than a sex object, a gymnast too smart for her station, existing only to titillate the male audience.  It hadn’t been until she’d died and returned that she’d been able to take over, but still, there had been the knowledge that she had _been killed_. 

It was almost ironic, she thought, looking down at the god who knelt at her feet.  Had he never destroyed her, she would have lived a dull life as a woman with no rights.  Perhaps she would have been married, had children, but she would have been under the power of her husband, and later, her sons.  She still would have been nothing.

She had spent so long hating Loki for killing her, that she had never stopped to realize that her death had been a baptism, had cleansed the human weakness from her body and allowed her to rise to a status to be feared and respected. 

Loki had allowed her to come to her full potential.

She leaned down to press her lips against his.  He tensed for a moment, but then relaxed, letting her take control, letting her taste the blood in his mouth, from a wound that she had caused.  He was under her power now, and she could do as she would with him, and she twisted her fingers in her hair and yanked his head back, reveling in the little squeak of surprise he made at the harsh movement.

The purr escaped her throat despite herself as she twisted her fingers tighter in his hair and bit at his lip-

Only for his him to push her away.  “Look, this is really awkward,” he said with an apologetic grimace, “But I tried, I really did, and I’m just not feeling it?”

She blinked.  “What?”

He shrugged, biting his lip.  “I dunno… Just not into it today.  It’s not you, I promise.  Normally I’m all about the weird power play kinks.”

Loretta smiled, and stepped back over the line.  “Of course,” she said, nodding, like she was the most reasonable person in the world.  “I’m sure that I only remind you of your ex… That’s alright.  I have another game we can play.”

“On second thought,” Gabriel said, tilting his head as he prodded experimentally at the flames, hissing under his breath as they burned his fingers, “kissing sounds great.  I think I just needed a minute.  I’m ready now.  Bring it on.  I’ve been such a bad angel, oh no, I need punishment.”  He grinned up at her hopefully.

“As enthusiastic as you sound right now,” Loretta said, sarcasm coloring her voice, “my other game is just as fun.”  She turned her back to him, unstoppering the vial.  Careful not to get any on herself, she reached into her makeup bag to pull out an eyeliner brush, small and precise.  “In fact, it might be a little more fun.  Now, you even have a choice.”  She turned and smiled at him, holding up the brush and the open vial.  “Would you like to play with the deadly venom, or with the holy fire?”

“None of the above?”  Gabriel smiled at her hopefully, but his shoulders slumped slightly. 

That tiny gesture of defeat sent Loretta’s heart soaring.  “Wrong answer, sweetheart.”

 

_The town square_

“Dean, Dean, hey, look at me, okay?  Stay with me, man, I need you to look at me…” 

Even as Sam grabbed Dean’s shoulders, he watched his brother paled and lost consciousness, his eyes rolling back and falling shut as he slumped against the sidewalk, bleeding out through his shirt.  “C’mon, Dean, c’mon… Cas!  Cas, get down here-”

Castiel was there even before Sam had finished the prayer, standing overhead, eyes wide as Sam shoved Dean’s shirt up to better see the wound.  Even as blood dripped freely, organs glistened under the sickly light of the streetlamp, and Dean didn’t have a chance. 

Dean didn’t have a chance until Castiel knelt down and pressed a hand to his chest. 

And then it was as though the wound had never existed. 

Color began to return to Dean’s lips and fingertips, and he sighed unconsciously, relaxing against Sam’s arm.  “Okay Dean,” Sam murmured, pushing his hands under his brother.  “You’re okay.  You’re okay.”  With a grunt of exertion, he lifted Dean’s limp form to throw him over his shoulder.  It only took a moment to push him into the back seat of the Impala, and he wasn’t surprised when Castiel slid into the back as well, murmuring something about how he wanted to make sure Dean was okay. 

Sam glanced in the mirror, back at Castiel, and the tender look on the angel’s face almost threw him.  For a moment, Sam could see Castiel as the Renaissance artists saw angels, gentle and caring, a creature that cared only for the betterment of humanity.  He was gazing down at Dean, lips slightly parted, eyes big and glittering blue. 

He sensed Sam’s gaze and glanced up, and the expression vanished.  The stained-glass angel was gone, leaving only Cas in its place. 

Sam sighed.  “He’ll be okay, Cas.”  A pause.  “He’ll be better now that you’re back.”

Castiel didn’t respond, and when Sam glanced backwards, twisting in the seat as he drove, he found that Castiel’s hand was hovering just to the side of Dean’s head, like he wanted to brush his fingers through Dean’s hair but was too afraid to complete the movement.

Sam sighed again, but said nothing as they pulled into the parking lot of the motel.  There was nothing to be done about the bullheadedness and romantic stiltedness of the pair, and now they needed to worry about rescuing Gabriel before the demons began torturing him.  Sam had no doubt that Gabriel would survive it, but the idea of the perky, sarcastic archangel being actually tortured made Sam’s stomach turn.

When they parked, it was Castiel who picked Dean up, carefully as though he was cradling a newborn child, and Sam let them into the room.  There was no sign of a holy oil fire ever pinning them down. 

Jack was pacing.  He hadn’t wanted to stay alone, and it was only when they pointed out that too many people involved in the trade could throw off the fragile deal that he agreed to stay behind.  But he was angry about it, and worried.  Sam could taste electricity in the air as the Nephilim jumped up at their arrival, only to bolt backwards and arrange the pillows for Dean.  “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s fine now,” Castiel murmured, and this time, when he set Dean down, he smoothed back the hunter’s hair.  “He’s just sleeping.”

“There’s no time to sleep.”  This time, it was Sam’s turn to start pacing.  “We need to get Gabriel and the victim now, before anything happens.  This case is getting too big.”

Quick as a puppy, Jack was at Sam’s side.  “I can help,” he said, eyes big.  “I’ve been able to fight the demon clown before.  Maybe I can kill him.”

Loathe as Sam was to put Jack in danger, he knew the boy was right.  “We’ll head over there now,” Sam said, nodding.  “We’ll pray if we need-”

He was interrupted by a groan from Dean.  Jack straightened up, locked between the Winchester who wanted to leave right away, and the Winchester who was just waking up from some unknown wound. 

Before Dean’s eyes even opened, one hand ghosted across his stomach.  He didn’t look particularly surprised to find that the wound had healed; that kind of thing was ridiculously common.  When he did open his eyes though, he sat up so quickly that Sam was surprised he didn’t fall back from the headrush.

“Cas,” he whispered, eyes wide, pupils dark against the green irises.  “You’re…”

“I am alive,” Castiel agreed, hovering at the side of the bed, one hand reaching out. 

Dean licked his lips, and then he stood, ignoring a muttered warning from Castiel to take it easy.  For a moment, they just stood there, eye to eye, drinking in the sight of the other. 

Sam, for a ridiculous moment, waited for them to kiss.  Jack seemed to expect something as well, glancing up at Sam quizzically before looking back at the pair, at the angel and the Righteous Man. Sam could feel himself getting more and more antsy as the time dragged on- Gabriel was in danger _right now_ , and Sam needed to do something, he was in the middle of something-

_-gold eyes looking up at him, waiting for him to respond, and he was leaning down-_

He shook the dream out of his head, swallowing hard against it.  Weird shared dreams with Gabriel were not the problem here, no matter how unsatisfied it left Sam feeling.  But Sam’s movement seemed to break the spell between Dean and Castiel. 

Dean slung his arms around Castiel’s shoulders.  “Welcome back, pal,” he said. 

Sam cringed at the words.  Jack glanced up at him, and Sam wasn’t sure if it was just in his imagination that the Nephilim looked disappointed, but it didn’t matter. 

“Guys,” Sam said.  “We have to get Gabriel back.  _Now_.”

 

_The circus_

Gabriel was slumped in the circle, panting even as blood dripped from his mouth.  His throat burned and his eyes watered- a couple shots of watered-down venom into it did not go down smoothly, and he made a low noise at the sight of his own blood and spit dripping to the ground, even as his stomach clenched at the poison.  He swallowed against the bile though- the only thing that would hurt more than the venom going down would be the venom coming back up. 

Loretta sat on the desk and watched him gag and spit blood, shivering as he wrapped his arms around his stomach.  She was a bitch, well and truly, and Gabriel glanced up at her through bloodshot eyes.  Were his grace more than a weak flicker beneath his skin, he would have snapped his fingers to turn her inside out before burning her to ash.  As it was, he spat blood in her direction, though all it did was hit the holy oil flames and hiss in a little puff of steam. 

“That was fun,” Loretta said, smiling widely when he seemed to gain some modicum of control back.  “Now, I’ve got another one.”  She picked up the knife from the table.  “What happens when you purify this in the holy fire, do you think?” she asked, and then bent down to do just that, turning the blade over and over until it glowed red hot.  “I would think it would have the same effect?”

Gabriel wiped blood off his mouth with the back of his hand.  The shots trailed heat from his sinuses to his chest, and he could feel the poison starting to take affect already.  He felt shaky, breath coming in pants rather than with control, and his fingers were starting to shake. 

“Is it too late to switch to the kisses?” Gabriel’s voice was raw as he looked down at the glowing blade. 

Loretta ignored the question, then reached out to take his hand.  He tried to pull it back, but his muscles were trembling now from the poison, and he just closed his eyes as she pressed the flat of the now-holy blade to his palm.  The smell of burnt meat hit his nose a split second before the pain, even as Loretta closed his fingers around the blade, and he moaned through his teeth, breath coming in shivery gasps.

But that was only easily repaired flesh- a moment later the holy heat of the knife reached his grace, and that was when he groaned out loud, shuddering and jerking his arm against it.  Weak grace coiled, sparking against the blade in retaliation, as the burn deepened against his very essence. 

It was only when Loretta pulled the blade away, nicking charred fingers in the process, that he’d realized he was on the ground, cheek pressed to the dirt.  His lips were wet- when he brushed his good hand against them he realized it was foam, all pink with blood, and he spat it out, disgusted by his vessel’s response to the poison that was already being absorbed, burning through his organs like fire-

Loretta stepped back, admiring her work, taking her time, and Gabriel took a slow breath through his burning mouth and throat.  That was it.  He just had to breathe through the pain, and eventually he would be rescued or she would slip up enough for him to escape. 

“Now,” she mused, picking up the vial and swirling the remaining contents around.  “What happens if we do a combination, sweetheart?”  She picked up the makeup brush and pushed it into the liquid, swirling it around to saturate the soft bristles.  “Let’s see that hand again.”

_Still at the circus, but outside_

The scream echoed across the field.  Jenny froze when she heard it, still sitting in her trailer with her back to the door, and then she covered her ears even as it faded.  Outside, she heard everything stop for a moment, and then there was someone knocking on her door. 

She ignored it, her breath hitching. 

“Jenny, it’s me.”

Carter. 

Jenny hastily wiped her eyes and stood, opening the door for him.  He looked unfazed by the scream; if he had heard it, he gave no outward indication that he cared.  “Hey, I figured you came back here.  You doing better?”  He smiled, and in the morning sunlight, he could have been an ordinary teen, a high school senior maybe.  His tattoos gave him the persona of a bad boy, but his bright eyes and easy smile showed that he had a heart of gold under all that. 

And then there was another scream, coming from Loretta’s tent.  Now, with the door open, Jenny could hear more details, hear that the scream ended in a choke, and she covered her mouth.  “Who is that?” she whispered.

Carter shrugged and let himself into the trailer.  “Come on, show’s tonight.  Don’t worry about Loretta’s  toy- whoever it is probably did something to make her mad.  We’ve got to worry about more important things.”

“More important…?”

Carter grabbed Jenny’s shoulders.  “Focus.  You’re the new makeup artist, remember?  Now, you’ve got a job to do- listen.  If it makes you feel better, I’ll go ask Loretta if she can gag the guy.  Figure out where everything is in the drawers.”  He gestured to the rest of her trailer, where an entire makeover station was set up.  “You’re booked all day… we definitely need to get a few more makeup people involved, but for now, you’re the only one.  Got it?”

There was a yelp from Loretta’s tent, though that one sounded more like surprise than a drawn out cry of pain.  Any other noises weren’t loud enough, or were lost in the cacophony of people getting ready for a big show.  There was music coming from the big tent now. 

“Show’s at four tonight,” Carter said, slapping her arm.  “You’ve got nine hours to get every performer made up nice, and some of them have full face paint, so get ready.”

Jenny opened her mouth, but how could she argue?

“Listen,” Carter said, suddenly drawing close to her.  “Tonight, when the show starts, everyone will be distracted.  Loretta won’t be in her tent.  You can steal the blood then, and then nobody will be able to find you if you bolt, okay?  The blood will be in vials- break those, and the binding spell will be broken.”

Her mouth suddenly went dry.  Those screams… what would she find in Loretta’s tent?

“Got it?”  Carter’s voice was low and urgent. 

Jenny swallowed and nodded. 

 

_The motel_

“We have to leave _now_ ,” Sam insisted, ready to bolt out the door himself. 

But Dean grabbed his arm.  “Look, man, I know you’re worried.  I’m worried too- but we have to get Jenny out of there first.  Poor kid’s not meant for this life.  I’ll be surprised if years of therapy helps her after this.  Gabe will be fine for the moment.”

“Then we get them at the same time-”

“If we can.”  Dean glanced over at Castiel, like he was reminding himself that the angel was still there.  “But listen.  Our first priority is to get the kid out- and if Gabe is worth _anything_ , he’ll understand that.  Second, we need to kill the demons.  You hear me, Sam?”

Sam grit his teeth, unable to tamp down the nervous energy that flickered through his muscles, making him jumpy and ready for a fight.  But Dean was right- they needed to finish this case.  Gabriel would understand that- hell, Gabriel would probably encourage it.

Right?

Sam tried not to think of Gabriel laughing at their case, stalling in the dream, pointing out how he didn’t even need to be there.  They’d dragged the weakened archangel into this- Sam had dragged him into it.  Sam had insisted that he stay.

The thought hit him like a sucker punch to the gut.  He needed to save Gabriel, but Dean was right- to prevent future death, they needed to kill the demons as well. 

“We need a plan,” Dean said, taking charge.  “And we gotta move quick, alright?  You listening, Sam?”

Sam took a breath, steeling himself, and nodded. 

And then, he was aware of a small, wary touch on his hand.  The touch was accompanied by a cool feeling, like a spring breeze rushing over him, sweeping away the guilt and worry that coiled in his gut, and for a moment, for the first time in his entire life, perhaps, Sam floated in peace-

“Woah, cool it there, kid.” 

And Sam realized he was falling, landing in Dean’s arms so heavily that they both ended up on the floor, though Dean’s arm saved Sam’s skull from a painful thud.  Jack stood above him, wide eyed, hand pulled back to his chest.  “I thought- he was upset- I just-”

Castiel moved to set a hand on Jack’s shoulder, and as Sam shook the fogginess from his head, he became aware that Castiel was _grinning_.  It wasn’t a small smile, or a mild look of pleasure, but it was a full, proud grin, like Jack had hit a home run at his first Little League game.  “You followed your instincts, Jack,” he said, reaching out to touch Jack’s arms.  “And your grace did exactly what it was supposed to do.  Bring peace.  Like we were originally created to do.” 

Sam and Dean scrambled to their feet.  The foggy bliss had vanished from Sam’s head, but still, he felt relaxed.  Everything would go well.  After all, they had all survived this long, hadn’t they?

Castiel was still talking to Jack.  “With time, you will learn to modulate the strength of your grace and be able to tailor the precise amount of strength for each human, but that… I cannot do that.  I can calm a human, but I cannot bring that peace…”

Jack’s eyes were big, and he looked between Castiel and the Winchesters, still worried that he had hurt Sam. 

Sam reached out, and clasped his arm.  “You’re good, Jack,” he said, smiling easily- and was this what normal people felt like?  Gabriel had chosen to stay, after all.  Sam had done what he had thought best at the time, and it had turned out badly, but none of this would be happening if Gabriel hadn’t killed the demon initially. 

He wasn’t casting blame though; it really wasn’t even Gabriel’s fault.  How could it be any of their faults?  They were fighting an impossible war, and if it was anybody’s fault, it was the demon herself. 

And there was peace in that thought, and Sam smiled at the group.  “Alright.  Let’s figure out a plan.”

 

_Two hours later, back at the circus_

Jenny had painted two skulls, and done several variations on basic eyeliner and stage makeup, and still there was a line coiled outside her trailer.  She was surprised that people weren’t taking numbers.  The only people who were arguing about her skills were the dancers.  She picked up a few rumors, despite her own silence through the shaky ordeal- apparently Bethany used to do their makeup, but since Bethany was now down an arm…

 _Oh god, Loki, please help_ , she thought in her head, as she sprayed setting spray over the dramatic eyeliner and red lips of one of the dancers.  _I swear, please, I’ll do anything…_

That dancer looked in the mirror and huffed at the job, but there wasn’t time to fix the slight unevenness of the eyeliner before she was forcibly shoved aside by the next performer, a big man who claimed, in a bellowing voice, that his talent was walking the tightrope.  He laughed at Jenny’s nervousness and smacked her butt as she reached into one of the drawers for a larger brush.

That brought tears to her eyes, but he couldn’t do anything- the door was open so that if anything happened, she could bolt, or at the very least, someone would hear her scream.  _Loki_ , she prayed again, but even in her head it trailed off into a wordless feeling, a plea for help.  If someone attacked her, would anybody come?  Nobody had gone to save whomever Loretta was torturing.  It had been hours, and yet still, occasionally, a weak scream would filter between the tents.

And people only laughed, or ignored it.  After all, there was nothing anybody could do. 

Jenny tried to shut her ears as the man made a lewd comment while she did his foundation.  There was nothing she could do either, except wait until everyone was distracted, and get the blood.

She didn’t know if she could get the former makeup artist out of his cage when she escaped.  She still had no key, and it was no use stealing the blood if she didn’t have a key to break his physical bonds.

She had to turn around when more tears blurred her vision.  Two people, now, would be dead because of her.  Because she was too weak and scared to save them.

 

_Loretta’s tent_

Gabriel had given up fighting- not given up spirit- no, he had plenty of spirit left.  It would take far longer than a few hours of not-particularly-creative torture to break his spirit.  No, he’d simply given up fighting for the moment, closing his eyes and riding through waves of pain and doing his best to pretend he was somewhere else.  Maybe Sam’s bed- with the hunter’s hands running all over him, and that pain in his hand- that wasn’t a burn, that was just Sam’s teeth- Gabriel wouldn’t have taken Sam to be a pleasure-pain kinda guy, but hey, who was he to complain?

It was the poison inside him that hurt more than Loretta’s cuts and burns on the outside.  Heartburn on a monumental level- Gabriel was pretty sure his organs had been liquefied.  But still- it took a while for the venom to do anything more than sting his actual grace, and the vessel would heal with time. 

Sure, there were scars on his true form from that venom, but those had been caused by centuries of direct exposure.  This, barely half a test tube full?  He could have taken all that he had been exposed to today and the night before as a shot and it wouldn’t permanently harm him.  Incapacitate for a bit, probably, but permanently harm?  No, that wasn’t a worry. 

What was a worry was the incoming prince of Hell.  Gabriel definitely did not want to fall into his hands- not weakened like this.  That would _suck_.  That would majorly suck, so he needed to-

He lost his train of thought when she branded him with the knife again, this time across his ribcage. 

It took him a few minutes to blink away the fireworks in his vision and regather himself.  No, he definitely had to bolt before the prince of Hell got here.  The only question was how.  He might be an archangel, but even fully charged, he couldn’t cross a ring of holy fire.  And this was a double ring of runes and holy fire, neither of which seemed to be affecting the demon, who crossed as she pleased. 

The flames weren’t even touching the tarp floor of the tent-

And his thoughts exploded as the hot knife opened up his already damaged hand, exposing bone.

Okay, maybe he screamed a little at that one, but it wasn’t from the pain.  He was above screaming from pain.  No, he was just surprised-

Okay, maybe he was screaming from the pain as she pried the knife under his skin, lifting it delicately from the muscles of his palm.  And maybe he was lurching backwards as delicate connective tissue parted to allow his skin to break free- and maybe he burned himself on the holy fire in an effort to escape as the knife ripped through the undamaged skin around the burn-

“Stop squirming,” Loretta said, and straightened up, returning to her makeup case.  She pulled out an eyeshadow brush, but she held it by the bristled end, giving herself a sparkling silver probe.  “Chuckles?”

The clown appeared through the curtain like he’d been listening the whole time. 

Loretta smiled.  “Hold Loki down for a moment.  I want to see what happens when you skin an archangel.”

“Can we not?” Gabriel’s voice was destroyed by the venom, closer to rasping than human speech.  Shuddering, he yanked the bleeding, burnt hand into his chest.  “Still more down for those kisses.”

“Come, sweetheart,” Loretta said, and then, quicker than Gabriel could react, he was on the ground, and the clown was sitting on his chest, prying his already damaged hand away from his chest-

“No, guys, c’mon-”

Gabriel’s rasping whine was ignored as Loretta considered the hand.  “Now,” she murmured, curling his fingers open and shut, ignoring his groans at the flexing of damaged skin and tendon, “let’s see how this works on an archangel.”

The center of the palm was already damaged and bleeding- Loretta used a cloth to soak up the excess blood, and then she used the makeup brush as a probe to work under the skin.  “You know,” she mused as the fascia separated, “I courted a taxidermist once.  He said this was a man’s job, but it seems to me to be just as delicate as a woman’s embroidery.”

Gabriel’s breath hitched as he closed his eyes, trying not to arch his back under the weight of the clown.  His hand was burning- each jab of the probe, each slice of the knife, sent pain shooting up his arms as nerves were damaged and severed.  Grace rushing to the area to fix it couldn’t keep up with the cell repair, occasionally releasing itself into the air in little glowing puffs. 

Loretta inhaled one of the tiny, escaped lights of grace, and her eyes glowed for a second before she choked on the holy power.  “What are you doing?” she growled, and when he didn’t answer, she heated the knife in the flames again and pressed it to his lips-

And the scream wrenched itself from his body as the most delicate spot in the body caught fire, as countless neurons wailed for salvation.

And he slumped under the weight of the clown.

Loretta straightened, moving the knife from his mouth.  “Loki?”

Chuckles looked down at him.  “I think that was too much for him.”

Loretta raised an eyebrow, then sighed.  “I suppose I should oversee set up.”  She leaned down and patted Gabriel’s cheek, though he’d fainted dead away.  “We’ll continue our game later, sweetheart.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be the last chapter of this arc, but all of a sudden it was 10K words and still going? So I had to chop it in two. Next one's like, halfway there. Props to anyone who's still reading this romp thru my headcanons, ya guys are the bomb


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And if you haven't seen it before, head back to Chapter 1 of Priest of Fenrir and Chapter 7 of Killer Clowns for art by @scrollingkingfisher. It's amazing and I wanna make sure everybody sees it

_Outside the circus_

True to Gabriel’s word, it was not hard to find the circus.  The black specter of the impala pulled to the edge of the road, and before Dean even had time to find a good spot to park, Castiel’s brows knit together.  “I sense demons,” he said.  “This is the place.”

Jack glanced over at Castiel, and then closed his eyes.  It took him a moment to cast out beyond the Impala, beyond the soul-signs of Sam and Dean and the grace of Castiel, but then he felt it as well.  The camped circus lay like a blot on the land, sucking the life from the surrounding area into the little piece of Hell on Earth. 

Jack took a deep breath, throwing himself further.  Now he was there, he could see the shadows of soul and rot that made the humans and demons, and he could see them walking, dancing… they were preparing for the show, for somebody important-

And then, like a muscle strained too hard too fast, his grace cramped and he was back in the car, opening his eyes.  “I think I sensed Gabriel,” he said, tilting his head.  His nose crinkled as he thought about it.  “He’s slippery.  Not an angel or a human or a demon.  Just… there.”

“Okay.”  Sam nodded as Dean pulled off on a wider part of the road’s shoulder to avoid Baby getting clipped by a passing Speedy Gonzales.  “That’s good enough for me.  We kill the clown, get the kids, and save Gabe.”  Before Dean had put the car into park, Sam was out and walking around to the trunk.

Jack waited until Dean had parked to get out as well, casting his grace lightly towards Sam.  He wasn’t sure if the peace he had shared earlier was still working, or if having a purpose had calmed Sam, but the swirling guilt storm of earlier was lowered behind the stoicism of a coming fight.  Jack swallowed, glad that Sam was okay for the moment- that moment of guilt and self-hate had scared Jack more than he let on. 

Actually, Jack thought, still looking at the back of Sam’s head as he rifled through the trunk, it hadn’t been the spiral itself.  It had been how quickly and easily Sam had fallen into it that had scared Jack.  Almost like the emotions had been waiting for Sam, like they were always there.  Sam had no reason to feel like that though.  Jack trusted him, loved him like what he assumed people felt towards a father or an older brother, so if Sam was helping him, Jack would help Sam in return. 

Sam glanced up from the trunk, looking directly at Jack.  “Are you reading my mind?” he asked.

Jack’s grace snapped back to himself- he hadn’t even realized it had still been in contact with Sam.  “Sorry.”

Sam opened his mouth, closed it, and then shook his head.  “No, it’s… fine,” he said, and for a moment he hesitated, like there was more he wanted to add.

But then Dean was elbowing him aside to get into the trunk as well, and the two men were loading guns and passing each other knives and ammo like they’d been hunting since they were children.

Castiel was watching Dean, memorizing every movement like they would soon be separated again, but he turned towards Jack a moment later.  “Do you have an angel blade?”

It was an innocuous question, only meant in the most practical terms, but Jack froze.  “I… no.”  For a moment, he wondered if someone would be angry, or if this was something necessary to being an angel- they couldn’t kill him, so he had just overlooked them as another normal blade, harmless as a chopping knife.

“They are strengthened by angel grace,” Castiel said.  “There was one made for each angel… each is unique in its forging to complement an angel’s grace.”

“I dunno, Cas, they all look the same to me-”

Castiel ignored Dean’s comment to push past to the trunk.  There were several angel blades, collected over the times where angels and Winchesters had met on the righteous field of battle (or more normally, dirty fights in sketchy back alleys).  Castiel lingered over them for a moment, like he had never done before.

And then he picked one up, and turned to Jack.  “This was the blade of Zachariah,” he said, holding it out.  “Once, Zachariah was a great general and a powerful warrior and a wise leader.  Like many of us, he fell-”

“Fell?” Dean reached out to pluck the blade from Castiel’s hand.  “Dude did more than a little fall from grace.  He gave me stomach cancer.  He was a dick.  It’s the blade of Jack Kelly now.  Here, kid.”  He flipped the angel blade in his hand and held it out to Jack by the hilt.  “Don’t give anyone cancer.”

“I would never do that,” Jack said stoically, holding the blade up to the light.  He could feel a thrumming of power, deep within the silver metal.  It was too weak for any human to feel, but it sparked at Jack’s grace, like a foreign prick of energy. 

And then, as he held it and explored the grace within the blade, it seemed to recognize him, or accept him, perhaps, and the grace in the blade joined with Jack’s, and for an imbalanced second it felt as though his entire arm was longer, as though his fingers had become the metal itself. 

And then he was Jack and the blade was the blade, but this time it seemed to thrum in his hand, ready for a fight. 

He looked up at the sudden slam of the trunk.  Nobody else seemed to notice the moment of introduction between the blade and Jack, and he didn’t know how to explain it, but he buried the thought in his head so he would remember to ask Castiel later.

They abandoned the car, hopping across the ditch to get to the trees (everybody else hopped, actually.  Sam just stepped).  It wasn’t that wide a copse, but the foliage was thick.  Jack, as the smallest, went first to find the easiest paths, but being the smallest wasn’t much of an advantage when he was still taller than average.

When another branch of thorn whipped across his arm (it stung, though the cuts healed immediately) he wondered if he couldn’t shift to a smaller size, as he had in the adrenaline fueled panic of birth.  But he had no idea how he’d done it then, and he didn’t want to experiment with unknown powers right before a fight.  That would distract people, and someone would get hurt.

And then, suddenly, the forest cleared, and Jack stumbled backwards so that he would still be under cover of the trees.  He could sense the darkness now, an ant’s nest of demons and sinners, and his grace rebelled against the blight.  “What now?” he asked, his voice little louder than a breath.

Dean and Sam were on either side of him, and Castiel was directly behind him.  The three heroes were silent for a moment, and then Dean gestured at Sam, pointing to the nearest sentry, and then pointed to one of the trailers near the animals.  “Prison,” he whispered.  “Sam- give Jack some cover.  Jack- you get in that trail and guard the guy inside- everyone here is bound by blood, so he won’t be able to escape until one of us gets to boss tent and smashes the vials.”

“Good plan,” Castiel whispered, from behind Jack’s shoulder.  “Which one is the boss tent?”

Dean hesitated.  “No idea.  We kill every bad guy until we find it.”

There was a series of thumbs ups, and then Sam narrowed his eyes, letting out a slow breath.  Jack sensed his heartrate drop in preparation for the fight.  He wondered how Sam and Dean did that- his own heart was racing.

Sam bolted, silent and quick, Jack right behind.  The sentry let out barely a yelp of surprise as his throat was cut, but the movement was enough to attract attention- someone yelled and a group of stage crew dressed in black rushed over- and Jack flung a hand out, forgetting that he was still holding the blade-

And the arc of grace-energy that was released was smooth and accurate, slamming three of the crew into the ground, and then he was at the prison car, hauling himself inside and slamming the door behind him.

And then he opened the door a crack, to make sure Sam and Dean and Castiel were okay.  The initial wave of crew was already dead, and the three men were walking towards the main part of the circus.  Dean glanced over at Jack, and held up a hand- a clear signal to _stay put_.

For a moment, Jack was furious- they were going to fight without him, and they’d just wanted him _safe_ , _out of the way_ -

“Hey, dude, is someone fighting out there?  I heard screams.”

Jack closed the door, wincing at the rank air, and peered into the gloom.  There was a young man further inside, leaning against the bars.  “Who are you?  A new guard?”

“My name is Jack.”  Jack looked down at the door handles, and then looked up at the bars of the cell beside him.  There was nobody there, so he ripped one of the bars off- it didn’t take much effort, really- and used it as a crossbar to lock the doors for the time being. 

“Woah,” said the boy in the cell.

Jack turned to him, not worried about his back being to the doors- he could sense anybody nearby anyways, and so far, the demons weren’t concerned about one prisoner.  A human prisoner- Jack smiled when he realized.  The boy was important in that he was innocent and thus deserved to be saved. 

“You a demon too, Jack?”  He didn’t look too afraid as Jack approached.  “Are you planning on killing me?  Could you just do it quick- don’t even count to three or anything- I really don’t want to be torn apart by the lizard boy-”

“I’m not going to kill you.”  Jack moved to the edge of the cell.  “Step back.  I’m saving you.”

“I’m Noah, by the way,” the boy said, backpedaling.  There was a grin on his face.  “Are you friends with Dean Winchester?”

Jack looked up and grinned as he broke the lock on the cell door.  “Yes.  He’s here too.  He and Sam and Castiel are fighting.  He said there was a blood bind on you?”

Noah nodded, eyes wide.  “Yeah- they’ll have to get it from Loretta’s tent-”

The conversation was interrupted as the fight suddenly moved closer.  Somebody screamed, and it was cut off in a gurgle.  It sounded so human that for a second- but no, Jack could still sense his family. 

“I’m supposed to stay here and guard you,” Jack said, glancing in the direction of the screams.

Noah snorted.  “No way.  I can guard myself.  I just need a weapon- ooh!  Can you use your Superman strength to rip me off a bar?”

Jack nodded, and a moment later Noah was spinning the metal so quick that it blurred even in Jack’s vision.  “Marching band guard,” Noah said proudly, setting the bar against the ground.  “I’ll be fine until the blood gets freed.  It’s the purple tent in the middle of the field, past the big show tent.  Go help your buddies!”

It didn’t take much convincing.  Jack slipped out of the trailer and he heard Noah slide the makeshift crossbar back into place as soon as the doors closed. 

And as soon as he stepped away, he was enveloped in screams and blood, and the blade in his hand hummed as Jack swung it up into a leering skull-faced demon.

 

_Jenny’s trailer_

“Those weren’t torture screams,” the dancer said, careful not to look away from the ceiling lest Jenny poke eyeliner into her eye again.  “What’s going on?  Can I get up?  I want to see the drama.”

“Um… sure.”  Jenny stepped back, though the knowledge that she was on a tight schedule bit at her.  The dancer hopped up from the chair and darted to the door, swinging her upper body outside so she could see to the other side of the field.

“Holy fuck,” she said, eyes widening.  “Holy fuck- hunters!”

The line of people waiting for makeup was already chaotic, but then somebody else looked in the direction of the fight, and the cry was taken up down the line- _hunters, no hunters here- Winchesters!_

Winchesters?  Was it- could it be that Dean Winchester was still alive?

Jenny scarcely let herself hope, but it flared in her chest anyways.  Maybe Dean had survived.  Maybe she wasn’t a killer?

The dancer hopped down from the trailer.  “No,” she said.  “We can’t have them here- not tonight!”

 And suddenly, Jenny was left alone, as performers darted off to defend from the attack. 

Her eyes widened as she looked towards the fight, but she couldn’t see who was fighting who- blades and sticks and flags were swung as weapons, and there were bodies on the ground, but from this distance she couldn’t see any details. 

And then there was a raucous laugh from nearby, and Jenny looked to the opposite direction-

Loretta and Chuckles were standing just outside Loretta’s tent, squinting at the melee near the animal trailers.  Jenny couldn’t hear what they said to each other, but all of a sudden they were both sprinting forward.  Chuckles was so excited by the prospect of a fight that he did a cartwheel as he passed Jenny’s trailer.

Neither of them noticed the poor girl as she covered her mouth, breathing hard.

This was her chance. 

Quick, quick, before she had a chance to think about the danger of the situation, she bolted towards Loretta’s tent, panting with terror, expecting a knife to sink into her back-

And then she was inside, just that easy. 

And she had to clap a hand over her own mouth to keep from screaming.

 

_The other side of the field_

The skull-painted head fell from the body, sparking as demonic energies escaped back into the universe.  Jack blinked, watching the body fall-

He’d never killed anyone before. 

Never like this.  Never with his hands, never bloodying his own blade. 

The head rolled away, hair sticking in its own bloody trail. 

Screams faded as the head rolled to a stop, slack-jawed as it stared at Jack.

Jack’s breath caught. 

The blade slipped from his fingers, falling, bouncing against the soaked red grass.

“Jack!”

He wrenched his eyes from the dead demon to look over at Sam.  The hunter was bleeding from his thigh, limping as he slammed a demon blade into a skull, wrenching it out even as he spun away, half dragging his leg.  “Jack, you okay?”

Jack opened his mouth, closed it, and then his eyes slid back to the dead demon.  Not demon- a man- it had been a man once.   Had he a family?  He could have been saved-

“Jack, hey, Jack-” Sam peeled off from the melee, and someone else followed- this time a man, not a demon. 

Jack sensed the soul, and he looked up, shouted a warning-

Sam half turned, tripped over his leg, grunted even as a punch to the gut sent him to the ground-

Jack scooped up the blade and darted forward, throwing himself over Sam even as the man kicked hard, and he swung the blade, opening up the man’s ribs- bone shone in the sun even as he stumbled backwards with a scream, falling, crashing to the ground, bleeding, screaming-

“Shut up!”  Jack’s scream was even louder as he threw himself at the dying man, grace thrumming in his ears.  “Stop it- stop screaming!”

They made contact, blood slick flesh under archangel hands.  Energy crackled-

And broken skin and bone knit back together.

Jack stared down at the man.  The man stared up at Jack.

Somewhere, people were screaming, Sam was talking, but there was only Jack and the nameless man, whose mouth was open as he touched his own ribs. 

“You saved me,” he whispered.

Jack licked his lips.  Grace was still thrumming in his ears, even as he shivered and turned away, back towards Sam, who was already back up and throwing himself into the fight again. 

It was a whirlwind of limbs and metal, of demon blemish and human soul, of screams and dying gurgles, and Jack pulled himself to his feet.  Zachariah’s blade hummed in his hand, grace thrummed in his head, and closing his eyes did nothing, the souls leaving imprints on his eyelids. 

Eyes closed, it was sounds and smells, the nearby trumpet of elephants, Sam’s grunt every time he wrenched his leg, whinnying horses, screaming, shouting, wailing demons.  And there were souls there, souls full of terror that made Jack’s heart pound and there was blood on his hands, tacky and drying-

“Shut up,” he whispered, pressing his hands to his ears.  “Oh god, _SHUT UP-_ ”

His own voice burned in his throat even as silence fell, and he took a shivering breath, opening his eyes-

The demons were on the ground, charred corpses smoking.  And the humans had their hands clamped over their ears, though now some were lowering them, and there was blood-

“Jack, hey,” Sam said, but his voice was too loud, and there was blood on his ears, dripping down the sides of his face, even as he held an arm out to Jack.  “Calm down, it’s all okay-”

“Sam,” Castiel said, and though he had come up beside Sam, Sam didn’t look, and Jack clamped a hand to his mouth- he’d broken Sam- hurt Sam-

And even as the nameless stage crew of the circus stumbled back from Jack, two figures appeared from the side of the tent.  Loretta’s eyes widened as she surveyed the carnage, and then they came to rest on Jack.  “A Nephilim,” she breathed, and then, slowly, she lifted a hand to point.  “I want it.”

 

_Loretta’s tent_

It had been a man, once, in the center of the fiery circle.  Now he was deader than dead, and Jenny shoved both fists against her mouth to keep from sobbing aloud.  Bloody foam did nothing to hide the burned remnants of his lips, and ripped clothes were stained- but his hand was the worst, like meat freshly butchered, muscle and bone glistening in the firelight. 

The skin, like a burned and damaged glove, rested on the desk like an oozing afterthought. 

And then, he stirred- and this time Jenny screamed through her hands, but she needed the blood-

“Hey.” 

His voice was destroyed, leaving only a whisper, and he grit his teeth as he half sat up.  “Hey, hey, kiddo, it’s okay.” 

His arm gave out, and he was on the ground again, only to struggle back up to sitting, hunched over, cradling his destroyed hand.  He closed his eyes, focusing on breathing, and then glanced up at her again.

And this time, she recognized him.  “Loki?”

The muscles of his face twisted so quick that Jenny almost missed all the expressions- a grin then a grimace then a huff of pain and then a straight face again.  With his good hand he wiped the remnants of foam from his lips.  “Yeah, kiddo.”  _Do not be afraid._

Jenny’s lips were parted now- the voice was in her head, and it was the crackling fire of a dying star, fathoms lost in the dead of space. 

 _Are you okay there?  You look a little shell-shocked_.

The broken being in the circle tilted its head- and she couldn’t even think _he_ anymore, because this creature, tortured and destroyed, was not human.  It wore a broken body, but the gold eyes were of another world, another time.  Jenny’s breath hitched- she’d found a monster-

 _Hush, child.  A monster, sure, but on your side_.

It wasn’t speaking out loud, and yet she understood, and she felt like she was standing on the edge of a great chasm, like if she took a single step towards the broken beast in the circle, she would fall, tumbling forevermore into an abyss-

_That’s a pretty good analogy there, kiddo.  But don’t worry, I won’t let you lose yourself.  Listen- quick now, we don’t have much time._

“What are you?”  The words were shuddery, forced from Jenny’s chest as she stepped back.  “What the _hell_ are you?”

It reached out with the good hand, and didn’t try to move its lips to speak normally.  _Peace, child.  I mean you no harm_.

Jenny’s breath hitched as she stared at the being in the circle.  “No harm?”

 _We have the same goal._   It wasn’t even looking at her anymore, curled up into itself, and yet she knew that it knew exactly where she was.  _We both want to escape.  You are strong.  Speaking to you like this would fry most humans, but you have strong blood somewhere in your family tree.  We can work together._

She shuddered, and then, for the first time, remembered the blood.  Where was it?  Could she get it without angering the creature in the circle?  Loki, who could destroy her with a thought, who had power so great that she could taste it like lightning in a storm-

 _The blood binding you is in a locked drawer_ , it said in her mind.  _But you have no key, and no strength to break the lock.  Help me out, and I’ll help you.  Tit for tat._

“Help?”  She stepped back again, shaking her head.  “No, I don’t-”

 _Kiddo._   The being’s voice was like liquid silver in her head, dripping through her thoughts.  _Please._

She shook her head again, and it looked up.  It wasn’t pleading, but it seemed to be appraising her, through those ancient golden eyes, and her breath hitched as she suddenly wondered if it wouldn’t be better to simply face her death outside.  Loki was not something she could trust-

 _They called me Gabriel_ , it corrected, but the name in her head wasn’t the casual name of her lab partner, spoken with annoyance over a mediocre grade and a spilled test tube.  It was the distant rumble of a coming storm, a promise of justice and damnation, and Jenny quaked in its onslaught, falling to her knees.  _I ushered the birth of the Son.  I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.  I smote the Tower of Babel and I wrote the Book of Mormon.  Although, bastards would not give me free tickets to the play even though I_ clearly _deserve front row seats- oh my god did I just vaporize your brain- shit shit shit-_ “Jenny!”

The whisper was fierce and swift, and Jenny realized her cheeks were wet even as her chest heaved in a sob.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, hands over her face.  “I’m agnostic, I’m sorry-”

 _Hey hey hey…_ This time the voice in her head was softer, far away.  _I’m sorry.  Got carried away.  Hey, kiddo, look at me, alright?_

Warily, she lowered her hands slightly, entire body trembling.  And the creature in front of her was smiling gently, even through the broken blisters on its lips.  _I need a working vessel_ , it said.  _My powers are too wrapped up in fixing this one - I need you to put out the flames, scuff the runes, and then give yourself unto me.  Are you okay with that?_

Jenny’s breath hitched again.  “You w-w-want-”

It nodded.  _I swear on my mother’s life that I won’t hold you longer than necessary.  I’m fond of this one here, and you are too young more my tastes- and also, between you and me, I’m trying to bang Sam Winchester, and I can’t do that if I’m wearing a minor.  That’s..._ A pause, and he shivered.  _Gross.  Ew.  Okay, I grossed myself out.  Yeesh.  Okay.  Anyways.  Not even twenty-four hours, okay?  Twelve, tops, but probably not even that.”_

Jenny shook her head.  “I need to get the blood-”

_I will do that, and I will return you safely to your parents.  If you choose, I can wipe yours and the entire town’s memory of this event.  But please, Jennifer Anne Cartwright, help me out here._

The tears were still damp on her cheeks, forgotten.  “You swear you’ll help?”

It inclined its head.  “Yes,” it whispered aloud, vocal cords too destroyed to even speak above a breath of air.

Jenny licked her lips, then let out a shuddering breath.  This was beyond her.  This was so beyond her that her head hurt, and she wanted to curl in a ball and cry, so she just buried her face in her hands.  “Sure,” she said.  “What the actual f-f-fuck.”

_I need you to break the circle, Jenny._

She sobbed again, then stood, and scuffed it, kicking viciously until the flames were extinguished.  The tortured, broken being looked up at her.  _I swear, I will be out of your body by the end of the day.  It’ll be like none of this ever happened._

She nodded, tears blurring her vision.

The creature smiled as its eyes glowed, and then there was nothing but warm light enveloping her as gently as the arms of her own mother.

 

_The other side of the field_

Sam’s ears were ringing, pulse throbbing in his head as he reached out for Jack.  That had been the boy’s voice, his true, angelic voice, and yet his expression crumpled as he stared at Sam. 

 _It’s okay_ , Sam repeated, but he couldn’t hear past the incessant ringing, and he only hoped that Jack understood his words.  _Don’t worry_.

Jack stepped back when Sam got closer, mouth open.  Sam stopped, hands still outstretched, trying not to shake his head- the throbbing pain in his ears was a problem for later, even as the ground lurched beneath him. 

Jack’s eyes flicked to the side, and then his head followed, and Sam turned too, straining to hear past the throbbing ringing-

Two demons stood next to the tent- the clown and the woman with the hacked up mouth.  Sam grit his teeth- they were speaking, and the woman was pointing at Jack, but he could hear nothing.  He could hear nothing, and the clown was looking at him now, leering, and despite himself, Sam backed up-

And his foot hit a body, and he crashed down, the world spinning around him.  The clown was laughing, mouth wide, teeth sharp and stained with blood as he knelt on Sam’s chest, a heavy weight, and Sam could smell moldering flesh on the hot breath that clogged his nose. 

Blood soaked the grass under his hands, and he thrashed, but the clown was an anchor as he reached down to grab Sam’s face.  His mouth moved, but Sam couldn’t hear the words.  There was only the face, the hideous, rotted, painted face, with breath like hot meat. 

He screamed as the thing leaned down close to him, sniffing his neck.  Fingernails dug into Sam’s flesh, and he punched out, fist shaking with terror-

A body flew through the air to slam into the clown, knocking it off of Sam, and the clown and the corpse rolled several feet before the clown yanked itself free.  The corpse rolled once more before stopping on its back.

Sam’s heart stopped, or perhaps it beat so hard that it was no longer beating. 

The corpse, the body that had appeared from nowhere, the body that someone had thrown like a common weapon-

It was Gabriel, bloody, broken, limp.

Sam screamed, but he couldn’t hear his own voice past the ringing in his ears.

And he threw himself forward, stumbling across the blood soaked field, to slam into the clown, to throw the demon to the ground.  “You killed him!”  Everything was silent, and he could only feel the words, feel the scream tearing from his throat.  “You destroyed him-”

A red curtain fell over the world.  His fist met the clown’s teeth, breaking bone, and he screamed and punched again, and again, and again, and again-

Someone grabbed his arm, and he threw them backwards-

And he turned from the clown, to find himself looking at a girl.

And the red faded as he looked into golden eyes.  The girl was speaking from where she knelt on the ground, her lips were moving, but Sam couldn’t hear, couldn’t move as she reached forward-

Warmth washed over him, and he closed his eyes, shivering, as his hearing was restored.  The world stopped lurching under him, and he shuddered. 

“Hey, hey, calm down there, Sammy.”  Gabriel smiled at him from the unfamiliar face, reaching out to touch Sam’s cheek, to wipe a bit of the blood away.  “Me and Thor used to do that- we called it _Get Help_ , because you’d pretend you needed to get help for your injured comrade, and then you’d just chuck them at the enemy- usually it was Thor chucking me, real nice not being thrown this time- Poor Rich there is gonna have a helluva headache if he wakes up before I take him over again.”

She laughed at her own rambling, then stood, turning sharply, to stand over the clown.  The face was a bloody mess, enough to put it out of commission while it healed.  A mortal would be dead.  And Gabriel’s body- no, Gabriel’s empty vessel, lay there.  And for the first time, Sam realized that the unconscious man was breathing, despite the gruesome evidence of torture.

“Someone fix Deano’s ears,” Gabriel said, gesturing to the other Winchester.  Her eyes fell onto Loretta, and the grin that spread across her face was feral.  “I’m too busy.”

Loretta’s scars were still fixed in a grin, but her lips pursed as she considered him.  “Loki,” she mused aloud.  “This is unexpected. 

Gabriel twirled, tossing her hair.  “You like?  Turns out, kiddo is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan.  Super strong bloodline, that.  She’d make a nice permanent vessel, if she weren’t so young.  Anyways.”  She stopped short.  “I’m going to kill you.  Permanently, this time.”

Loretta laughed, even as Gabriel advanced, thumbs running over her fingertips in preparation for snapping. 

Sam’s heart was still pounding as he looked around- Dean was fine, Castiel already reaching out to heal him. The humans who had been fighting were clearing out, bolting to salvage what was left of their hearing, and the demons were dead.  And Jack stood to the side, hugging himself, eyes wide as he stared at Sam.

Gabriel was fixated on Loretta, and the demon clown was healing but still down-

And then Loretta bolted. 

Gabriel actually looked surprised at that, but then she laughed and gave chase, and Sam felt feathers brush his face as the archangel passed.  Dean shouted, but it was too late, and the pair vanished into the main tent. 

Sam cursed- Gabriel had abandoned the broken vessel on the ground, and someone needed to grab the still breathing man, and someone needed to watch the clown, and someone needed to comfort Jack-

Gabriel was alive, and okay.  Sam took a deep breath, reminding himself of the truth, but one look at the vessel made him want to hug the man to his chest and cry.  Gabriel had been tortured because Sam insisted he stay-

“Grab Jack and the vessel.”  Dean’s voice was a gruff command as he and Castiel headed for the tent.  “We got Gabe.”

Sam opened his mouth to argue, but then he was alone on the field, and there were tears in Jack’s eyes, and the boy was trembling.

 

_The main tent_

Loretta dashed inside, leaping up to grab the scaffolding behind the seats, swinging herself up multiple levels to the nosebleeds.  She paused a moment, watching Loki rush in through the door.  The archangel, wearing the body of their makeup artist, didn’t bother to search for Loretta.  Instead, she simply walked to the center of the largest of the three rings, and crossed her arms.  “I’m waiting.”

Loretta was about to respond, but she needn’t have.  Emmett and Anthony were opposite her, walking through the seats as they discussed preparations between themselves, and both demons looked up Loki’s entrance. 

She smiled enticingly at them.  “Hello, boys.  Remember me?”

Loretta’s eyes narrowed as she watched the scene, and then she slipped over the back of the seats, back into the scaffolding beneath.  Across the circus, she could hear Emmett shout at Loki, could hear their footsteps as they ran down the aisle towards the trickster.  She let them run- she had another plan.

The lizard boy was caged within the tent.  All it took would be opening the cage, and he would be released into the rings.  Not even Loki could survive that mauling. 

More footsteps- Loretta froze and looked between the seats as two more of their people rushed in.  Dean Winchester, and an angel.  Loki tilted her head, glancing back at them, and then stepped back.   “I’ll let muscle take on muscle,” she said, as Dean and Castiel raced past her to meet Emmett and Anthony.  “I only want Harley Quinn.”

And muscle taking on muscle was right- the pairs clashed like two freight trains.  Emmett drove Castiel to the ground.  The angel twisted under him, wrenching Emmett’s arm-

Dean and Anthony were in a stalemate, both men grunting as they tried to wrestle the other down.  Dean was bigger; Anthony had more arms-

And Loki danced around the two fights, laughing.  “What are you all doing?” she asked, and her voice rang out.  “Did you forget your weapons?  Anyways… Harley Quinn!  Where’d you go?  I can sense you, you know.  Your stink is all over this place.”

Loretta held her breath and swung from one bar to another- she was almost there, could see the lizard boy’s cage beneath the seats.  Momentum carried her in a flip around the bar, and she flew to the next one-

Dean slammed Anthony into the seats, and the bar vibrated violently as Loretta tried to grab it.  Her grip broke, and she fell to the ground, landing close to silent. 

And yet, through the cracks in the paneling under the seats, she could see Loki’s head turn, see the demigod look straight in her direction.  Emmett tried to grab her as she strode over, but she merely stepped over the hand, letting the demon and angel wrestle over the angel blade. 

Loretta’s breath caught- if it came to a hand to hand fight, she wasn’t sure she could beat Loki.  Instead, she broke into a run, and Loki turned, following the trajectory even if she couldn’t see through the empty seats. 

The lizard boy was crashing against his cage when she got close, whining and snarling, and Loretta’s lip curled with disgust, even as she hopped atop the cage.  The ugly creature, face dry and scaly, tried to grab her, but the spaces of the cage were too small, and when she threw the latch, the only way for the boy to run was into the ring. 

She didn’t hesitate.

The boy burst forth, screaming, and Loki’s head tilted over slightly as she considered the coming danger.  And the boy snarled, teeth bared, thirsting for blood, and Loretta smiled.

And then Loki fell to her knees. 

Loretta frowned, looking through the lizard boy’s doorway into the ring.  Loki should be screaming, and yet-

“Oh kiddo,” Loki breathed, holding out her hands. 

The lizard boy snarled and slid to a stop.  His teeth were bared as he considered the trickster. 

The ring was silent.  Emmett and Anthony’s fights had frozen, combatants fixing their eyes on the trickster and the monster.  The only sound were the loud, ragged breaths of the lizard boy himself as he stood before Loki.

“Kill the demigod!”  Loretta’s voice broke the silence, ringing out only to be absorbed by the thick fabric of the tent.  “You’re starving- there’s food right there!”

And the lizard boy did go to Loki.  But there was no snarling, no gnashing teeth.  He dropped his head and collapsed into the arms of the trickster.  And Loki sat back on her heels, hugging the boy to her chest.  “It’s okay, kiddo,” she murmured, and the air tingled with power as the scaling skin on the boy’s face was healed, leaving it smooth and clean.  “You’re safe now.”

And the lizard boy started to cry.

Loki dropped her head so that a curtain of black hair hid the boy’s face, and now there were no sounds except a child’s sobs and a woman’s gentle coos of reassurance.  “I’ve got you,” she whispered as they rocked back and forth.  “Hush, baby, I’ve got you.”

The air tasted of holy power as Loki’s grace wrapped around the child, smoothing over feral insanity, reminding the boy of his underlying humanity, and Loretta’s jaw dropped. 

Emmett and Anthony were backing up now, and she could see their eyes, wide with fear.  And now, she felt that fear too.  If this creature could tame the lizard boy, then there was no hope for them.

Loki looked up, and gold eyes met Loretta’s.

And they were dark and ancient and terrible, and Loretta quaked, enraptured by that gaze.  Her heart pounded, and it seemed to her that there were more than two eyes, that this being she had captured and tortured was staring down at her with more eyes than a thousand thrones and dominions, and each eye held the same judgement of damnation. 

She needed to run- this creature would destroy her in its wrath- but she was caught like a mouse in the gaze of a snake, and her breath hitched as she tried to wrench her eyes away-

And Loki held up one hand, thumb pressed to middle finger.

The snap rang out through the tent, only for the echoes to be stifled by the fabric of the walls.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter of the circus arc after this. No more breaks until the end of the semester tho, so fair warning updates are gonna slow down again (it hurts me more than you, this is my stress relief lmao)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for the Svadilfari mythology again...

_The circus field_

Jack stumbled backwards from Sam, eyes wide.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.  “I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay,” Sam said, holding his hands out.  “It’s okay, Jack.  It was an accident.”

Jack shook his head, but Sam held up a hand.  “Listen, Jack, it’s okay.  I’m okay.  Dean’s okay.  Everybody’s okay.  We gotta get… er… Gabe’s vessel patched up and to the car…  But I need you to take a deep breath, okay?”

“What was that?”  Jack’s eyes were wide as he looked up at Sam.  “That wasn’t me, that was-”

“That was your true voice, Jack.”  Sam reached out to touch his arm, but Jack stepped backwards again, resisting the comfort.  Sam sighed and dropped his hand.  “That was your angel voice.  Cas can do it too… I mean, I’ve never heard it, but Dean has.  He can s’how you how to control it.  It isn’t a big-”

Gabriel’s vessel screamed.

Sam turned sharply, gritting his teeth.  They’d hesitated too long- the clown was up, and was leaning over the man who had formerly held the archangel Gabriel.  The poor man’s eyes were fixed on the demon, but he couldn’t move, panting, and all he whispered was, “Loki- Loki, where-?”

“Hey!” Sam’s shout got the broken clown’s attention. 

Chuckles smiled widely.  “Did you want to play too, Sam?”

“Why won’t you just die?!”  Jack scooped up the angel blade and vanished, reappearing to slam the metal into Chuckles’s skull. 

The clown blinked as veins sparked under its skin, even as Jack drove him to the ground, skull cracking under metal-

“Oh shit,” whispered the vessel, eyes widening when the clown slammed down beside him.  “Oh fuck this hurts- what did he do- god, Loki!”

Jack panted as he looked down at the dead clown, fingers shaking where they were clenched around the knife.  Sam darted over- realizing halfway through that Gabriel had healed his leg too.  “Jack, it’s okay- let go of the blade.”

Jack shook his head, eyes fixed on the clown.  “I can’t-”

“HOLY FUCK-”

Sam winced and looked over, where the vessel, panting and sweating, had caught sight of his own ruined hand.  Now he was moaning, alternating between staring at it and groaning in pain, and Sam flinched.  “Jack, I need you to put him under.”

Jack shook his head as he looked down at the knife and the dead demon.

“Jack.”  Sam dropped to a knee, and for a moment, he ignored the moans of the man next to them.  “Listen to me.  It’s okay.”  He reached out to wrap his hands around Jack’s, slowly breaking his grip on the knife, rubbing his fingers gently to relax the muscles.  “Hey, look at me.”

Jack licked his lips, drew in a shaky breath, but looked up at Sam.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, not conscious of the tear track running down his cheek. 

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”  Sam hesitated, then reached forward to pull Jack closer to him, away from the dead clown.  “It’s okay.  Everyone’s okay.  I need you to help me though.  I need you to put Gabe’s vessel under, okay?”

Jack pressed his face into Sam’s shoulder.  He remained like that, still for a moment, and then he nodded and pulled away from Sam. 

“Loki?” the man gasped, turning his head to look at Jack- and Sam realized with a start that the gold color had gone from his eyes.  They were watering with pain, though he wasn’t crying- and they’d darkened to an ordinary brown. 

Jack ignored the question and touched his arm.  He slumped, eyes closing again, and Sam relaxed, letting out a breath.  “Okay- let’s move him somewhere… somewhere else.”  Demon bodies still littered the field, blood soaking the grass.  The humans of the circus had vanished, though Sam wasn’t worried about them.  With the hearing loss from Jack’s voice and the destruction of their leader, they wouldn’t be a problem. 

He squeezed Jack’s shoulder, then pulled off his flannel to wrap it around the red mess of a hand that the vessel was stuck with.  He tied it off with the sleeves, then scooped the smaller man up, cradling him against his chest.  “Alright, Jack, let’s get him to the car.  You ready?  Cas and Dean will meet us there.  With Gabe.”

It turned out they didn’t need to wait- Dean and Castiel walked out of the main tent a moment later, exchanging looks before quickening their pace over to Sam and Jack. 

And Gabriel followed, still using Jenny as a vessel.  Sam swallowed hard, looking the girl up and down once to check for injuries, even before he realized that she was carrying a child on her hip.  He opened his mouth to ask, but Castiel gave the slightest shake of his head, and he fell silent, waiting for them to catch up. 

And then he was aware of why Castiel had shaken his head- Gabriel’s grace, even weak as it was, was tangible in the air, like the crackling of molecules before a storm.  Sam could taste it, metallic, and when he glanced over, Jack’s eyes were wide, and he was hovering close to Sam.  It was only the body in his arms that prevented Sam from putting an arm around the boy. 

Gabriel pressed the child’s head to her chest as she crossed through the demon bodies so he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of a corpse and walked through, stepping daintily over each one, not waiting to see if anybody was following.  Sam glanced at Castiel and Dean and followed. 

Dean paused to knock loudly on one of the trailer doors.  “Hey,” he called, and his voice rang out over the now-silent field.  “You’re free.”

There was silence for a moment, and then a scraping of metal, and the slender boy poked his head out, looking around at the dead demons.  His wary smile turned wide and genuine, and he jumped out.  Dean gestured at him to follow.  “We’ll give you a ride into town, kid.”

“Thanks, Dean.”  He darted for the woods.  “I owe you that beer too.”

It was a close squeeze in the car.  Gabriel took the front passenger seat, still cradling the quiet boy- and Sam wanted to know where she found a child, but the hard look on her face kept him from asking.  He couldn’t imagine that it was good, whatever the story was.  That left Dean to drive and Jack to squish between him and Gabriel, and everyone else to squeeze in the back.  Noah made a noise at the vessel’s wounds, but didn’t comment, even as Castiel half turned sideways to examine the man.

“The venom,” Castiel said, his voice breaking the silence as he looked forward at Gabriel.  “That’s why you needed to switch vessels.”

Gabriel closed her eyes a moment, and then let out a breath, long and slow.  Sam got the sense the archangel might have been counting backwards, although he didn’t know if he was connecting with Gabriel or just reading into that sigh. 

“It was that or flop around,” Gabriel said, and her voice was low, without any of its ordinary humor.  Even in a new body, Sam could hear the change in tone. “Don’t fuck him up too much back there- I’m taking him back.”

Castiel blinked.  “You’re taking him back- Gabriel, he’s beyond repair!  That venom-”

“Will get burned off by my grace.”  Gabriel’s fingers gentled stroked down the boy’s hair.  Whether he was asleep or simply relaxed against the teenage body, Sam couldn’t tell.  “I’m not possessing a sixteen year old,” Gabriel added.  “It’s all fresh and new and pure in here- I don’t wanna change that for her.”

“We can find you a new vess-”

“I have my vessels planned out, Castiel.”  Gabriel dropped her forehead to the child’s head.  “Please don’t argue with me right now.  I’m not in the mood.”

“Gabriel-”

“ _Castiel_.” 

Castiel swallowed and fell silent for a moment, looking away.  Jack, squished in the front between Gabriel and Dean, winced at the tone, glancing backwards towards Sam. 

Sam smiled at him, and then leaned forward.  “Gabe- can Cas do anything to prep your vessel-”

“Rich.”

“What?”

“His name is Rich.” 

Sam blinked, then nodded.  He’d heard Gabriel mention that already, but it had slipped his mind.  “Is there anything Cas can do?”

There was silence for a few moments, except for the purr of Baby’s engine and too many people trying to avoid shifting weight into each other.  The only one who seemed to have room was Gabriel, and while the metallic taste of grace hanging in the air had gone down, the cold look on her face kept Jack and Dean carefully on the driver’s side. 

Finally, Gabriel shook her head.  “If you can get some of the surface wounds healed, that would be nice.”  She hesitated.  “Don’t worry if you can’t- that venom’s some potent stuff.  I’ll just hole up somewhere-”

“We have extra rooms.”

To Sam’s surprise, it was Dean who spoke up.  “At our bunker.  If you need a place to crash, we can throw some clean sheets on a bed for you.” 

“Um, yeah.”  Sam looked away from Dean and back to Gabriel.  “There’s plenty of space.  You can take as long as you need.”

Gabriel just half shrugged.  The child still hadn’t moved, other than a few moments of shifting weight, and Gabriel continued to run fingers through his hair. 

They pulled into the motel parking lot a few minutes later.  Noah and Dean were the first out- Sam could hear them talking as he pulled Rich’s body from the back seat, but Noah interrupted the conversation to grab the motel door for Sam. 

Sam took a breath when he’d adjusted the man’s head on a pillow, debating in his head what his next move was.  Jack needed comfort, first and foremost, but he wanted to check in on Gabriel too- the archangel was upset by whatever had happened in the main circus tent, and Gabriel was a wildcard.  Sam was painfully aware that he didn’t truly know the archangel, or how such a being would react. 

It ended up being an easy answer- Gabriel was the one who walked in first, still carrying the child.  She collapsed on the chair, moving the kid to sit on her lap, and took a long breath. 

“Gabe, hey-”

“Don’t speak.”  Gabriel looked up, gold eyes bright in the face of the teenage girl.  “Don’t- I’m just hyping myself up to jump back over.  It’s fine.”

Sam nodded, and sat on the edge of the bed, facing Gabriel.  “Do you want to talk?”

“It’s gonna hurt, there’s nothing to talk-”

“About the kid.”

Gabriel blinked, glancing down at the child’s head, and back up at Sam.  “What about him?”

Sam smiled, trying to reassure the archangel.  “Gabe, you haven’t let go of that kid since you found him.  You want someone else to take a turn holding him?”

She shook her head, dropping her nose down to his hair again.  “Don’t worry about it… he’s asleep.  I don’t want to wake him…”

“Hey, Gabe…”  Sam reached out to touch her knee.  He wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted to convey, and he was very aware that Jack still needed him, but he didn’t want Gabriel to bolt again.  “Listen- we’re serious about that offer for the bunker.  We have a ton of rooms, and the wards will keep you safe, and-”

Gabriel held up a hand.  “Listen, Sam, even if I didn’t like you, I don’t really have a choice right now.  We’re connected, remember? And I suggest you get out those nerdy books you’re so fond of when we get back to your place and start looking into that.  Right now, I need to deal with my vessel and this kid…”  He looked down at the top of the boy’s head.  “And I need to have a talk with someone about condom usage and forgetting about demigods.”

“Who-” Sam started, but Gabriel was already getting up, leaning over to lay the sleeping boy down on the bed. 

“Go help Deano out with the fallout.  I won’t leave.”

Sam still hesitated in the doorway, not ready to leave Gabriel alone, but needing to talk to Jack.  Gabriel looked up from the boy, and scoffed in Sam’s direction.  “Dude, get out of here.  I don’t wanna blast your eyes jumping from vessel to vessel.” 

Gabriel shooed him, rolling her eyes, and Sam finally obeyed, walking back out to the parking lot.

 

_In the motel room_

Gabriel lay on the edge of the bed- the girl would fall when the archangel left, and it would be a shame to rescue her just to lose her to a brain bleed when she hit the corner of the desk- and winced, before untangling grace from flesh.  Bare grace shivered when exposed to the air, and he wasted no time in re-entering Rich’s body.

For a second, there was pain, and then he was dragged under, into unconsciousness.

He was looking at a girl on a bed.  She was gesturing to him to join, smiling, though no words came out of her mouth, and there was no intelligence in her eyes.  An illusion- a nice illusion, but an illusion all the same.  He turned a circle, finding that he was in a hotel room, with a wide window overlooking a pool and a half unpacked bag on the floor.  Laundry was strewn everywhere.

“We have to have a talk.”

Gabriel whipped around to find himself looking at himself, and he was thrown for a moment before he realized what had happened.  “Did you just hijack the meatsuit?”

“Uh, yeah, I hijacked the bod.”  Rich crossed his arms.  “You want to explain why my freaking hand was off?”

Gabriel’s gaze flicked to the side, towards the fake girl, then back to his vessel’s soul.  “To be fair, your hand is still on.  Just the skin is off.”

“Loki!”

“’kay, fine, sorry.”  He held up his hands innocently.  “I didn’t think you’d wake up.”

Rich still didn’t look particularly happy about it.  “Look, we have a deal here.  I let you use my body, and in exchange, I get to live in this illusion world where I’m as famous as Leo DiCaprio, get laid every night, and am super fucking wealthy.  What does this look like?”

Gabriel tilted his head.  “Um?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”  The vessel’s soul grabbed his arm and turned them both in a circle, gesturing.  “It looks like a shitty motel room and a cheap whore.”

“I think she’s pretty-”

“What is wrong with you?”  Rich threw a hand out.  “One minute, I’m living it up, and the next minute, there’s nothing.  Literally, nothing.  It’s like the whole screen blacked out.  And now it’s back, but it’s a cheap copy!  Where’s my playground?”

Gabriel blinked.  “You’re kinda a dick, you know that?  I’ve been going through some issues-”

“Some issues.”  Rich pressed his hands together, almost in prayer, and let out a breath.  “Look, man.  I am being possessed right now.  You can see how I deserve payment for that-”

Gabriel held a finger against the vessel’s lips to shush him.  “You know, none of your ancestors have been this mouthy with me.”

“None of my ancestors lost their freaking hand!”  He shoved Gabriel’s finger away.  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a long breath.  “What’s wrong with me?  Do you really want to ask me that right now?”

“Yeah, actually, I do.”  Rich put his hands on his waist and waited.  “Why the fuck did I just wake up with no hand?  Where did my fantasy playground go?”

Gabriel took a breath and sat back on the bed, shoving the whore aside.  She shimmered and vanished.  “I just found one of my grandkids,” he said.

Rich’s eyes narrowed.  “What?”

“Yeah.”  Gabriel ran a hand down his face.  “That blackout you had?  We were dead.  Eightish years… Fratricide, you know how it is.  And now we’re back.  I’ve got about no power, and now I gotta go yell at my kid for knocking up some poor girl and letting that kid become some demon’s plaything.  Because that’s what the gods do, right?  Leave random demigods around to become monster fodder before they’re even old enough to lift a sword.”

He rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands.  Next to him, the bed dipped down as the vessel sat beside him.  “I died, and everything went insane,” he muttered.  “There’s a Nephilim outside who needs to be trained.  One of my boys is trying to start a coup, but I haven’t gotten the details yet.  Probably Sleipnir.  Jörmungandr is screwing the mortal girls again, which means this kid probably isn’t the only snake-boy right now.  Fenrir is pissed.  Hela… I haven’t even seen her, yet, which means once again I’m letting her fall through the cracks because she’s competent…”  He groaned, and fell backwards, aware of his vessel watching him. 

“Oh, and also, I really freaking like this mortal, but I can’t tell if it’s because I actually like him, or because there’s this weird connection between us, which I haven’t figured out yet.  Which just sucks, you know, because mortals keep dying.  My brother is alive and free, you know, the brother who killed me.  Heaven’s a fucking mess.  My powers are about zip right now.  And… ugh.”  He broke off his tirade in a frustrated groan.  “Also, I just got tortured, and I don’t really wanna wake up, because it’s gonna hurt…”

 Rich was silent, looking at him.  Gabriel looked up at the vessel.  “Thanks for being a sounding board, man.”

“I definitely don’t care about any of that,” Rich said blankly.  But before he could complain again, he vanished.

“You definitely don’t have the power to do that,” Gabriel said to the empty space. 

And then there was a presence.  Gabriel sat up on the bed, and froze.

The man who had appeared in the dream was tall and built like a lumberjack, with snow white hair and a casually scruffy beard.  There was a gleam in his eyes and he smiled broadly as he stepped forward into the room. 

“That little show of power today was amazing, Lo,” he said, sitting on the bed beside Gabriel.  “It’s amazing… years and years, you’ve hidden yourself from me, but then all it takes is one sloppy move-”

Gabriel’s breath hitched, and then pain slammed into him as he wrenched awake, gasping.  Next to him, the child was crying, and the girl was starting to wake up, reaching over instinctively to shush the boy, but his head was spinning and his hands were shaking and he felt like he was going to throw up-

He jerked off the bed, grabbing the post to balance himself, black circles pulsing in his vision, but he couldn’t fall unconscious, couldn’t let himself be caught off guard-

His breath hitched as he closed his eyes, focusing on the pulsing points of pain all over his body. 

It probably hadn’t even been a real dream.  It had probably only been a fever dream, brought on by the torture- Svadilfari wasn’t even strong enough to cross dream borders, wasn’t even a real god, technically-

Gabriel took a deep breath, trying to crush down the images, the smell of forest floor, hands on his vessel-

No, it was nothing.  He was nothing, after all.  A coward archangel, a petty trickster.  He was deserter to Heaven, had caused the destruction of his own children, had been rightfully murdered by his brother, had been abandoned by God himself. 

And he abandoned the vessel-girl and the boy to bolt to the bathroom, fall to his knees, gagging, but all that came up was blood and phlegm and burning acid as the venom continued to eat away at him, and he shuddered, pressing his forehead into cold porcelain.

This time, he let the darkness take over his vision, falling too deep into himself for even the darkest demons of his past to find him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A'ite! That's a wrap on the circus arc, tho not the entire story, clearly. This thing is a freaking monster that has taken over my free time (lmao what free time???) 
> 
> Stay tuned, my dudes. Finally, finally, the characters are in place for the story that I'm REALLY here to write.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied- officially, this is the last chapter of the circus arc, and the next one will be a new arc. I just got so excited for myself tbh
> 
> Also TW for noncon in sleipnir myth. i'll add an official tag for it in the next part so I don't have to warn each chapter, altho there will not be an explicit scene of the myth itself... I have a few scenes planned revolving around it, but none of the actual event in case anyone was worried, idk how you guys feel about that and I figured I'd throw that out there cause it's a sensitive thing and I don't want to blindside anyone

_Elysian Fields Hotel, 8 years ago_

There were too many gods in the building.  Conflicting auras muddied the air, making Sleipnir’s senses go haywire, and he had not been invited to the meeting either- that was Odin’s job, and this was a peaceful mission.  Sleipnir, equal parts warhorse mount and Odin’s massive bodyguard, was not welcome in a council where everybody had sworn not to kill each other. 

But there was no point in sitting in his room, holding his head as it pounded from all the magic pouring into the air.  Sleipnir left a few minutes after Odin had checked in, flitting several miles away to land in a Holiday Inn, taking over one of the suites on the top floor with a simple snap of his fingers. 

He kicked off his shoes, ordered waffles from room service, and reclined on the bed to turn on the TV to whatever movie was playing, though he wasn’t really paying attention.  He was more focused on an anxious feeling in his gut, a rolling uneasiness, like he should be there, at Odin’s side.

Centuries, millennia, of standing at Odin’s shoulder, of going into battle with him, of protecting the king of the Aesir with his life had granted him a sort of sixth sense… Odin had been uneasy going into this, snapping more than normal, his good eye flicking around at the other gods in the lobby.  And they were gods whom Sleipnir had had run-ins with in the past, whom he certainly did not trust with Odin’s life…

But Odin had insisted that Sleipnir’s presence could be construed as bringing in a warrior, and he needed to be part of this shaky alliance to destroy Lucifer.  And, while Sleipnir could voice his uncertainties, he could not disobey a direct command from Odin.

He was several hours into a _Lord of the Rings_ marathon, dozing simply to pass the time, when he felt it. 

Felt him.

“Loki,” he whispered, sitting stock straight, eyes narrowing. 

The coiling anxiety heightened as Sleipnir threw his senses outwards, towards Odin, but there were still too many gods there, and the signals were blurry and warped.  But if Loki and Odin, blood brothers with a broken bond, were deigning to be in the same room as each other without screaming or fighting or breaking into petty hysterics, then perhaps Lucifer was a greater threat than Sleipnir had given the archangel credit for. 

He reached out, brushing his essence against Odin’s.  _Do you need me?_

And Odin responded quickly.  _No… your whore mother is simply making a scene with one of his lovers.  He- oh.  Oh- DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?_

And the sudden rush of anger made Sleipnir clutch at his head, but he did not break the connection- no, he was loyal, and Odin’s anger was not directed at him, but at Loki.  _Know about what, milord?_

For several long moments, the connection held no words.  Rather, it was crashing waves of anger and betrayal and disbelief that had Sleipnir doubled over, gasping for air as his heart raced.  But he was used to this, and all he had to do was ride out the storm, and Odin, wisest of the gods, would explain.

And, like, every other time before, the anger, while not dissipating, became contained, controlled.  _Gabriel_ , he said to Sleipnir.

Sleipnir’s brow furrowed, and he let his confusion be felt through the bond.  _Who is Gabriel?_

 _The archangel, Gabriel._   Odin’s thoughts became clipped and measured.  _What do you know about the archangel Gabriel?_

Sleipnir didn’t respond with explanations, but with a memory instead, of being a child, looking up at his tutor.  He couldn’t remember the Aesir man’s name or face, but he remembered the histories he was taught, and one of those was a brief summary of Heaven.  _Four archangels ruled Heaven until the rebellion of Lucifer.  At roughly the same time, the archangel Gabriel was killed.  Or, if he wasn’t killed, he hasn’t been seen in eons.  What does that have to do with-?_

And Odin responded with an image, a memory as well.  Only, this one was fresh and recent, an image of Loki the Lie Smith and Kali the Destroyer, and it ended with Loki’s death.

 _We both know Loki’s not really dead_ \- Sleipnir started, and then the words slotted into place.  _No._

_The archangel Gabriel was under our roof the entire time._

Sleipnir’s breath hitched, and for the first time, he was the one who cut the connection with his king, breaking it off, heart pounding.  No.

No.

There was no way that was true. 

Loki?  Loki, the trickster whore, the creature that single handedly caused all of Asgard’s problems- There was no way.  There was no way in all the Nine Realms that he could be the MIA archangel, a supreme being that had vanished ages ago.

And yet-

Sleipnir was powerful.  He could fly to the moon and back in an instant, he could ride the currents within the ether of the universe, propelling himself on invisible wings.  He had the strength of armies in his muscles, he could see into the souls of those who would harm his king.  Those weren’t the strengths of the frost giants Loki claimed to have been begotten by.  Those weren’t the strengths of Svadilfari, the father whom Sleipnir had never met. 

He didn’t know how long he paced, trying to convince himself that it was a lie, that Loki was not what Odin had seen.  His hands were shaking-

And he remembered, ages ago-

Sleipnir and Thor had been sent out on a raid, to the fiery lands of Muspelheim, to put down an army that Surtr had been raising.  Sleipnir suspected this was a ruse- when they arrived, Surtr had been doing nothing of the kind, still reeling from the last time he had been put down.  And it was when they were standing on an empty field, Sleipnir’s eight hooves uncomfortably warm from the lava flow a few yards away, that both of them had heard it.

It was a scream, the screaming of something powerful and ancient and utterly, completely broken- and Thor had leapt astride Sleipnir’s back even as the stallion was taking off to Asgard-

And they had arrived as Odin oversaw the chaining of a creature who wore Loki’s face, a creature who screamed and wailed and called out for an unknown father even as eyes glowed hot enough to burn and invisible wings beat against the stone like a trapped bird of prey, throwing eldritch shadows over the cave-

Sigyn had been wailing, and Thor joined when he’d found out what happened, but Odin had only tightened the chains, watching as Loki had accepted his fate, smiling as the trickster slumped into the binds.  The glow had vanished, the feathered shadows dissipated, and Loki silently sobbed, broken. 

Sleipnir had been numb, blindly obeying Odin’s command to pick up Thor and carry the screaming storm god back to Asgard, to leave Loki alone in the cave with the venomous snake and the wailing wife. 

And he’d tried to forget the glowing eyes and beating wings.  Everybody else had- everybody knew Loki was lying about being a frost giant, that he was a minor Nephilim or some strange mutt of a demigod.  But something had been unleashed, when Vali and Nari were slaughtered, and Sleipnir had ignored the connotations of those glowing eyes as much as Odin had.

Even as he kept trying to convince himself of the falsehood, power blasted out from the distant epicenter of the hotel, strong enough to send Sleipnir falling to his knees.  He gagged on it, on the explosion of grace and essence and god-strength, on the screams of dying gods-

Silence. 

It was a metaphysical silence so loud that Sleipnir’s essence seemed to vibrate, and he felt the subtle _snick_ and icy chill of a spell breaking.  It was a small spell, so small that Sleipnir hadn’t even realized that it was on him until he felt it break, and at the same time-

Odin was dead. 

He realized this with a slight gasp, casting out, only to find that Loki’s being, too, had ceased to exist.  They were both dead, and there was only Lucifer himself, who quickly vanished from the area, off to do who knew what other despicable things. 

Sleipnir didn’t get up, from where he knelt on the floor.  He remained there, reeling.

Odin was dead.

He felt strangely numb. 

For eons, he had protected the king of Asgard.  Even when he was barely a child, when he still stumbled on too-long colt’s legs or tripped on chubby toddler feet, Loki would point him to Odin, tell him that his destiny was to serve his king.  Even when he was old enough to learn what a disappointment Loki was, Odin had invited him into the throne room, had watched him fight, had trained him in battle strategy and conquest. 

And when Loki was declared an enemy to the throne, Sleipnir had remained at Odin’s side, silently grateful that the king’s mercy extended to the son of a traitor. 

But Odin was dead. 

Odin was dead, and Sleipnir had no idea what to do next.  He hadn’t failed- Odin had explicitly sent him away- but he hadn’t succeeded either.  He just… was.

And a hand fell heavy on his shoulder. 

Sleipnir swallowed and looked up, not sure what he expected.  Loki, maybe, laughing about how he’d pulled another ruse?  Odin, somehow alive?  Thor, about to destroy him for letting Odin die?

But no, it was none of them.  Rather, it was a man Sleipnir had never seen before.  He was tall, taller than Sleipnir, and broader too, both in shoulders and in the waist.  There were more lines on his face, a glimmer in his deep brown eyes, and his hair was platinum, contrasting with the salt and pepper of his beard.  He was a workman, salt of the earth, dressed in flannel and smelling of forest and stable. 

And Sleipnir was no idiot- he connected the dots- Loki’s death, a breaking spell, and now a man similar in appearance to him?

“Father,” he said, and his voice came out dull under the weight of Odin’s death. 

Svadilfari nodded, kneeling beside Sleipnir, as he slowly reached out to raise his son’s face, to look upon his child.  “You have your mother’s eyes,” he said, tilting Sleipnir’s head to the side so the lamplight would be cast through golden irises.  “When she warded you against me, I never thought I would see you.  My son.”  The words came out in a breath as he looked over Sleipnir’s face.  “Amazing.”

The spell that had broken with Loki’s death… “A ward,” Sleipnir breathed, and then winced the shared bond with his half-siblings exploded.  He shut it down, ignored it, even as Fenrir demanded to know what Sleipnir had witnessed, the wolf’s very thoughts a snarl that drowned out the slippery shadow that was Hela and the hiss of Jörmungandr-

“A ward,” Svadilfari agreed, running his knuckles down Sleipnir’s face, over cheekbone and jaw.  “One tiny ward that kept me from you… for ages… you grew up without a father…”  He covered his mouth with his hand.  “She kept you from me, and it was her death that brought us together…”

Sleipnir didn’t know what he expected, when he thought about his father.  He knew he was a mistake, a joke- Loki had slept with the wrong being again, and he had been the result.  But he’d assumed Svadilfari either hadn’t known or hadn’t cared; he had never expected this, these deep brown eyes crinkled under some emotion that Sleipnir couldn’t read-

He didn’t expect broad arms to pull him closer in a hug, didn’t expect to feel a bearded cheek press to his own.  It was a strong hug, a grip of arms promising stability even if Loki was the biggest liar in the Nine Realms. 

As Sleipnir sat there, frozen in the embrace, he wished, with all his being, that it was Odin’s arms around him rather than this stranger.

 

_The motel in Brentwood, present day_

“Your true voice is nothing to be scared of.”  Castiel lay a hand on Jack’s shoulder, having pulled him away from the rest of the group.  “It is as natural to us as breathing is to humans.  The voices you and I are speaking in now are crude.”  He reached out to take Jack’s hand, moving the boy’s fingers to his own throat.  “This voice is just made of flesh vibrating and your mouth shaping earthly sounds.”

Jack blinked, swallowing hard.  “It made everybody’s ears bleed-”

“They are human,” Castiel agreed.  He reached out to tilt Jack’s head upwards.  “And you are divine.  That doesn’t mean you are greater than them.  It simply means that you have more responsibilities.”

Jack shook his head, pulling his hand back.  “I _hurt_ them, Castiel.  I hurt Sam-”

“You are not the first angel to make a mistake like that.”  Castiel hesitated a moment, glancing across the parking lot, where Dean and the slender boy from the circus were sharing a beer from the back of the car.  He wondered how they had bonded so quickly.  “The first time I met Dean, I…” 

He hesitated, never having spoken of that event to anybody, but Jack was looking up at him now, eyes big and worried. 

“You understand, I saved him from Hell,” Castiel said slowly.  “And not the Hell you know, of petty demons and politics.  This was Hell, before Crowley’s organization.  It was a battle to save his soul, and Dean is the Righteous Man… I thought his soul could handle it.”

Jack blinked, silent, absorbing the story.  Castiel sighed, and continued, voice low so nobody else would hear.  “His soul, naked and pure, could comprehend my true form” he said.  “I battled hoards of demons, ancient, primordial things, to save Dean’s soul, and all that time, he watched me.  And I thought…”  He smiled, slightly, and shook his head.  “But it didn’t matter.  When I returned his soul to his body, his brain, his flesh, could not comprehend me.  While some of his memories of Hell remain, a memory of me was simply never created.”

“But he knows you now-”

“In this human vessel.”  Castiel glanced back over at Dean, and then back to Jack.  “I tried to come to him, in my true form.  I did not know his human form couldn’t handle it- I assumed because his soul was strong enough, his flesh would be as well.  I was wrong.”

“And you hurt him?”  Jack’s eyes were big as he tried to understand.  “But that wasn’t your fault.  You thought-”

“The point is that it was not your fault either,” Castiel said, smiling gently and setting his hands on the boy’s shoulders.  “More so than with me- I already knew the weakness of human bodies, and I attempted contact anyways.  You have no idea, no training.  You were acting simply on instinct.  But you don’t need to rely on instinct anymore, Jack.  I’m here to teach you, and Gabriel as well, when he’s well enough-”

Castiel was interrupted by Sam’s walking up.  “Hey guys- Jack, you doing okay?”

Jack hesitated, and nodded.  “Castiel explained the difference between a true voice and a flesh voice.  Although, I still don’t understand what an angel’s true voice really is.”

Sam raised his eyebrows.  “Flesh voice, huh?  Thanks, Cas.  Means a lot.”

“I am simply telling him the truth-”

And they were interrupted, yet again, by a shriek of, “somebody help me!” from inside the motel room. 

Castiel was the first inside, but only because he had wings.  Ozone crackled in the air as he landed, finding the girl, Jenny, kneeling on the floor of the bathroom and wiping Gabriel’s face with a towel.  Her eyes were big, though she didn’t question Castiel’s sudden appearance. 

“He just collapsed,” she whispered.  “His body was broken… He told me twelve hours, and it hasn’t even been an hour, if he needed longer, he could have taken it, I didn’t mean for him to get hurt… I didn’t want to move him and make anything worse, but he’s so hurt, and he’s not bad, I saw his thoughts and his head and he’s so sad and-and-and-” 

Her rambling devolved into a sob as she wiped blood from his face, her touch impossibly gentle. 

On the bed, a child was crying, though he was silent, tears streaming down his face.  Castiel hesitated, unsure whether to go to Gabriel or to the boy, but his question was answered when everybody else came in.  Dean scooped up the boy, bouncing him.  “You guys, get Gabe.”  He barked the command over the boy’s head, then carried him outside, away from the blood. 

Sam and Castiel exchanged a look, and then Sam took the girl’s hands, while Castiel knelt down to minister to Gabriel.  “Listen, it’s okay,” Sam said, sitting her on the edge of the tub.  “Gabe’s gonna be fine.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Castiel pressing his hands to Gabriel’s chest.  Grace glowed underneath his fingers.

Jenny’s breath shook with her sobs, but she nodded, looking up at Sam.  Sam smiled, trying to reassure her even through his worries, and grabbed a clean towel to start cleaning the blood off her hands.  “Being possessed by an angel is a huge thing,” he said as he dampened it.  “It’s amazing that you’re even conscious right now… especially since he’s an archangel.”

Almost on cue, Gabriel coughed behind them, though he didn’t come to consciousness.  Sam glanced back, biting his lip, but Castiel’s hands were still on his chest, so he turned back to Jenny.

She nodded again, reaching with shaking hands for the towel in Sam’s hands.  “He pr-pr-promised not to lose me,” she whispered, digging her fingers into the damp fabric.  “He’s s-so old and… and tired…”  She hesitated again, and Sam reached over Castiel and Gabriel to fill a glass with water and hand it to Jenny.

She drank, slowly, closing her eyes, and that simple action seemed to calm her down some.  While the tears still fell, the sobs dissipated.  “I saw him,” she whispered.  “His thoughts.  His memories.  It was…” Her nose crinkled as she squeezed the plastic motel cup in one hand and the damp cloth in the other.  “It was like a dream…”  She looked up sharply.  “He likes you.  When you talk to him, he listens…”

Sam was floored by that one, but he couldn’t respond, because Gabriel was coughing again.  Castiel hummed something under his breath that made Sam’s jaw vibrate, though it was too low to hear the actual pitches.  But Gabriel seemed to be responding to it, coughing and spitting blood as Castiel held him up into a sitting position. 

Jenny, though she was still crying, moved to help, grabbing the trash can and holding it out so Gabriel wouldn’t be spitting blood and mucus on the floor.  It wasn’t much, but when he caught his breath for a single moment, he gave her a grateful look, even slumped into Castiel’s arms as he was. 

And then his gaze moved to Sam, and he was coughing again, even as Castiel gently rubbed circles on his back, humming again. 

“It’s a healing song,” Jenny whispered, eyes wide.  “I recognize it-”

“Vessel knows too much.”  Gabriel choked out the words, his voice a broken grating, throat burned by venom and acid.  “Get her home…” 

“I’m okay,” she said, shaking her head.  “I’m okay.  I’m okay.”  And then she burst into tears again. 

“Alright.”  Sam put an arm around her and gently pulled her away from Gabriel.  “We’ll give him some space to breathe, okay?”

Jenny let herself be led back into the main part of the motel room, shaking under Sam’s arm as she pressed her fingers to her face.  “Please… he’s so hurt, Sam.  Help him.”

Sam pulled her closer, into a hug, rubbing one hand up and down her back in an effort to ground her.  “Listen, let’s get you back to your parents, okay?  You’ve been through way too much.  We’ll take care of Gabriel for you.”

Jack stepped into the room.  “Dean wants to know if everything is alright-” he froze, when he glanced past Sam to the bathroom, where Gabriel, exhausted by the coughing fit, was simply leaning against Castiel’s chest. 

“Jack, wait outside,” Sam tried, but Jack, for the first time, ignored Sam. 

“Is he okay?” he asked, stepping forward.

Castiel looked up, and hesitated a moment, brow creasing as he decided whether to explain or send Jack away.  He decided on the former.  “His grace was already depleted when he arrived here.  But the injuries he sustained, combined with jumping from vessel to vessel too quickly and healing the boy at the circus exhausted him, and I cannot heal him with the poison they used.”

Jack blinked and nodded, and then he walked over to the bathroom to kneel on the bloody tiles.  Gabriel didn’t respond to the sudden proximity, his face half squished by Castiel’s chest.  Jack watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest for a moment, and then looked up at Castiel.  “How do you heal?”

“Jack, if I cannot-”

“I’m supposed to be more powerful than Lucifer.”  Jack shot Castiel a dark look.  “So how do you heal?”

Castiel tilted his head, regarding the boy for a long moment.  And then he took Jack’s hands.  “I cannot tell you how to heal grace,” he said.  “I am not a healer.  But the body is easier.  The body wants to heal itself.  The most basic aspect of healing is simply accelerating that natural process.”  Of course, that wasn’t factoring in the extra parts, of fixing scars or creating actual miracles.  “In this case, Gabriel’s body is poisoned.  The poison will either have to be purged or burned away before his wounds can be healed.”

Jack nodded, nose crinkling as he absorbed the theory.  He hesitated, and then reached down to press his fingers against Gabriel’s chest.  They started to glow slightly, but nothing happened except for a growing smell of ozone.  “Now what?”

“Let your grace go into his body,” Castiel said.  “Do not try to shape it yourself.  Simply let it follow the flow of his blood.”

Jack nodded, nose still scrunched in concentration, and closed his eyes.  For a moment, nothing happened, but then the light at each fingertip grew in brightness.  Gabriel made a little noise like a gasp, head falling back, and then he started coughing again. 

This time though, the cough wasn’t simply choking on blood and ragged throat, but went all the way, until he was gagging and heaving as well, leaning into Castiel’s arms even as tremors wracked his body.  Jack almost drew back, but at a steadying nod from Castiel, he let the grace continue to flow, eyes glowing bright gold.

Sam let go of Jenny, darting back over, though all he could do was hold out the trash can as Gabriel threw up blood and then something darker, fingers of his good hand reaching out to dig into Sam’s flannel even as Jack’s grace continued to pump through his system. 

It felt like a century that Castiel supported Gabriel’s wracked body, but it was probably no more than a few minutes before he slumped, pale and sweating, eyes closed as he breathed freely. 

“Should I stop?”  Jack’s eyes were glowing with unearthly light as he turned them onto Castiel, and this time, Castiel nodded. 

“Break the connection slowly,” he said.  “Don’t snap.  If Gabriel reaches for you, allow him to.  He won’t hurt you.”

Jack nodded, and a moment later, the glow died.  Gabriel slumped further, moaning slightly, good hand clasping at Castiel’s jacked. 

And now, the toxins gone, it was Castiel’s turn.  He was quicker and neater than Jack, and it only took a moment for flesh to knit, new skin to form, and for internal chemical burns to heal. 

Sam sat back, and only now that Gabriel was okay, slipping into a grace induced unconsciousness via Castiel, did his hands start shaking as he wondered how close they had come to losing the archangel for a second time.

 

_Hell, the Cage_

Time moved differently in Hell.  Raphael could feel it slipping past, through her grace, ruffling her feathers in its flight, but she didn’t care.  She simply knelt there, on the uncomfortably hot stone, considering her next move. 

She could not leave Michael.  That much was clear.  Michael needed her, more than she might need anything.  He was perched atop a rock now, across the cavern from her.  His wings were hunched like some scruffy vulture, and occasionally an eye would gleam from between the feathers, before vanishing again. 

Other than the occasional shifting of weight, the two archangels had been still, thus far, but now Raphael took a deep breath, brushed the remnants of tears from her face, and held up her hands so that Michael would see them.  “Brother,” she said, and slowly got to her feet.  “Do you remember me?  It’s Raphael.”

Michael’s eyes appeared again, his feathers rustling at her movement. 

“Come here, Michael.”  Raphael held out her hands, moving slowly, and took a single step towards him.

He flinched away, hiding behind his wings again. 

Raphael didn’t try to move closer.  “Michael,” she repeated, in a firmer voice.  “It is me.  You know me.  Come down from that ledge so I can bring you from this place.” 

When he still didn’t respond, Raphael reached out with her grace, softly, gently, careful to not touch him with it.  She wanted him to sense it, wanted him to close the space.  He could sense it- she saw dusky blue eyes widen in the face of the youngest Winchester boy.  But instead of reaching out, he flinched back from it, pressing himself against the wall of the cavern and making a pathetic noise that had no place coming from an archangel’s mouth. 

Raphael let out a breath, closing her eyes.  Michael had been more damaged than she thought.  The Cage had done its job with brutal efficiency. 

“We are leaving Hell,” Raphael said, voice firm.  She took a few steps towards Michael.  “If you understand me, then know that I will not hurt you, and I am going to take you somewhere that is more comfortable.”

She didn’t know where that was yet, but it wasn’t as though she had a choice in the matter.  There was a vague idea that perhaps Gabriel knew a spot, preferably warded against enemies and isolated away from people.  The best plan, she decided, would be to know the spot beforehand, so she could take Michael there with as little upset as possible, so he wouldn’t be stressed by several moves. 

Michael was already stressed enough.  Just her movements towards him had him cowering in against the cave wall.  She didn’t dare bring him to Earth without knowing exactly where they were going. 

Which meant that Gabriel was her only option, no matter if they were friendly now or not.  He had given her his emergency grace though, tainted as it had been.  She had to hope that he was willing to help, because, much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t know how to function on Earth, and Heaven was not an option now.

So she closed her eyes, and reached out.

It took her a bit to find Gabriel’s signal.  She couldn’t look for Gabriel the archangel, but rather, had to reach out for Loki the Trickster.  And Loki was a slippery being to find, like trying to find a fish by hand in murky water.  It took her nearly an hour, and eventually she only found him because, on a whim, she searched for Castiel. 

And Gabriel was right there. 

He was unconscious- when she considered it though, she found that it was Castiel’s grace holding him under, and he was still weak, weaker than when she’d left.  So it was a healing coma, or at least, a coma so that his grace could regenerate itself.

It was crude though- Castiel was no healer.  But Gabriel wasn’t fighting it, so she could only assume that he was fine with it.  And he had been on his own for so long, that Raphael was aware that she had no say on his decisions, or whom he chose to be vulnerable around.

So she ignored it, and reached out to his grace, deep within his dreamless sleep, stirring him to a higher level of consciousness. 

She was rewarded with a telepathic sense of a question mark, though he didn’t seem alarmed.

 _Gabriel_ , she said. 

 _Mmm?_  

And it was amazing that he managed to make one thought sound so lazy.  She supposed he deserved it, after all that they’d put him through.  _I am with Michael, and he is in bad shape._

There was quiet, though the link between them remained. 

 _I don’t know what you want me to do?_   Gabriel finally responded, though there was still a slur to his thoughts.  Raphael needed to do this quick, before he slipped back into full unconsciousness.

 _I need a place to bring him_ , she replied.  _And I assume, with your history on Earth, that you know of a place that is isolated from any enemies and quiet so he will not be overwhelmed by human life_.

There was quiet again.  She could feel the connection becoming unstable, though it wasn’t so much a direct cutting off, as Gabriel being unable to hold enough concentration to keep the conversation going. 

 _Yeah… I’ve got a lake house…_ The message devolved into simply an image, the address clear on the mailbox.  _Go for it_.

The connection dissolved before Raphael could even thank him.  Though now, like a number saved into a phone, the awareness of him remained, a connection in her grace like she had to every other angel.  And it felt so natural, her brother sliding back into his rightful spot in her grace, that the back of her eyes prickled with yet more tears.

But she did not let them fall.  She was tired of crying, and Michael needed her. 

 

  _Back in Brentwood_

Jenny stood in her front yard, watching the Impala as it disappeared off into the distance, leaving her in front of her house.  Sam had offered to walk her to the door, but she had declined.  It would be easier for everyone if she just claimed not to be able to remember anything, if she just did her best to forget.

Gabriel had offered to let her forget.  But he was unconscious, and she didn’t want to wake him.  And anyways, she didn’t want to forget.  Not right now, not when an eternity of memories drifted in foggy remembrance in the back of her head.  She could feel Gabriel.  She could feel his happiness and his sadness and his sorrows and triumphs, and there was something sacred about that. 

She had seen a glimpse of eternity, through his eyes, and the eternity had not swallowed her.  And maybe, just maybe, she was stronger than she thought. 

“Jenny!”

The footsteps coming down the street were familiar, and she found that her lips were shaping the name _Carter_ even before she turned to greet him. 

“Jenny, you’re okay!  I was worried-”

She tuned him out as he spoke, considering him.  He was just a boy, nothing more than a boy.  She could see that now.  Gabriel had known a thousand boys like him, throughout time, and there would be a thousand more.  There was nothing holy about him.  He was simply a child, such as she was, terrified of his future and doing the best that he could.

“Hush,” she said, reaching out to put her finger up to his lips.  He blinked, but obeyed, falling silent.  “I have to go talk to my parents,” she said.  “And you need to figure out what you’re doing next.”

He nodded, eyes wide, and she dropped her finger from his mouth.  “I’m going to say I forgot,” she said, and glanced towards the house.  “Or we can say that everybody was dead.  Maybe they got angry and killed each other…” She paused, and looked up at him.  “Do you plan on sticking around?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and for the first time, Jenny knew that he was being completely honest. 

“Thanks,” she said, and licked her lips.  “Um-”

He looked slightly confused, waiting for her to finish the sentence.  And maybe she was high on Gabriel’s grace, or maybe she was numb from the trauma of the kidnapping, or maybe her adrenal glands had kicked into overdrive at the thought of being truly safe again. 

But none of the reasons mattered, because she knew what Gabriel would have done, and she followed the archangel’s lead, standing up on her toes to press her lips against Carter’s.  And she snaked her arms around him, opening her mouth slightly to taste the dust on his lips-

“You just licked me.”  He shoved her away, eyes big.  “You just straight up licked my mouth!”

Jenny opened her eyes, stomach dropping as she realized what she’d done.  Carter rubbed his mouth off on his sleeve, nose wrinkled.  “Haven’t you ever kissed anyone before?”

“I mean, yeah, of course…”  Jenny’s cheeks burned.  She could feel tears pricking at her eyes again.  “Um, I have to go inside.  Um- bye.” 

She darted inside before there could be any more discussion.  When she glanced out the window again, Carter was disappearing up the street, and she decided that was a good thing. 

And she also knew, with the ancient knowledge of a being whose thoughts she had no right to know, that she had been a _good_ kisser.  She had done it by the book.  And though the rejection stung, well, the kiss had been born of an eternity of practice, and besides, she was only sixteen.  She had time to try again. 

Besides, Carter was probably a dick anyways. 

“Mom?  Dad?”  She ventured deeper into the house, taking a deep breath.  “I’m okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrightly, loose ends are tied up, and onto the next arc... for realsies this time. 
> 
> And for the record, guess who knows what she's doing after graduation, like boom shaka laka I'm still gonna have disgusting debt but like in a couple years I'll have a jooooob to pay it ooooffffff and I just thought everyone should know that unless something goes very, very wrong in my life (knock on wood), I won't have to sell my laptop in exchange for a paltry meal so if I ever stop updating it's because the FBI agent watching me got sick of my fanfiction and took me out 
> 
> so anyways comments are nice and since it's the official end of a section I figure it's a good time to thank everyone who's still reading this piece of trash? Like, to my bros who comment on every chapter, honestly that gives me the motivation to do the next chapter and I know it only takes you a few minutes to write the comments but I honestly reread them over and over and they make pouring time and energy into this thing hella worth it. Cause I know it's a long read at this point, which means you had to take time out of your busy life to read it and that is like, crazy to me? idk I've just never really had my work validated like that before and I know it's got a ton of issues but like, thanks. Like, a lot. A lot a lot. 
> 
> Anyways, PORN STARS, I am honestly not surprised and so pumped that canon didn't have Gabe saying something cheesy like 'i always loved you' or some crap like that cause please, canon sabriel could be considered in the future, but rn my bois being in a healthy relationship would be hella ooc, they gotta help each other get back to normal first. And tbh I don't even resent Gabe for jumping ship, like the poor guy just went through hell LITERALLY and then they spring an apocalypse on him? Give my boi an hour and a hot chocolate first!


End file.
